Lazarus
by The Urban Spaceman
Summary: Waking amidst the rubble of Three Mile Island, Wade Wilson has only fractured memories of who he is, how he got there, and what's been done to him. Determined to claim back his identity and his life, he looks for allies to help him restore what was taken from him. (Updating Fridays)
1. From The Ashes

_Author's Note: This Deadpool story is a sequel to my Wolverine Origins fic, 'No I in Team.' I recommend you go read that first, but it's not absolutely necessary. Please note that this story is set in the __film__ universe. So yes, this Deadpool is a mutant from birth, rather than a human mutate. In true Marvel style, let's just call it 'Earth–42 Continuity' ('42' because it hasn't already been assigned, plus… y'know… THHGTTG) but rest assured, I'm going to try to get Deadpool as close to as his comic-book incarnation as humanly possible. Which isn't all that easy, given what the producers of the Wolverine film did to him._

_**IMPORTANT:**__ When you see chunks of italicised text in the main body of this chapter, which are separated from the main narrative by a non-existent break-line, they are in fact __**flash-backs**__, as I'm sure you would have figured out on your own pretty quickly. I'm just mentioning this here to avoid confusion. Also, I hate author-notes, so don't expect many more._

_. . ._

Lazarus

* * *

_I woke from a dream, a terrible nightmare in which I was held prisoner inside my own body, silent witness to actions I could neither control nor prevent. I woke from a dream, but I paid a terrible price for waking; I forgot who I was. I could not remember that I was a man. I thought I was something… different. A machine. A monster. Something in between. In waking, I lost my humanity. I wasn't even sure I wanted to find it again._

* * *

_1. From the Ashes_

Night had descended upon Three Mile Island, the third period of darkness since The Incident. The third period of darkness since he had woken from a deeper blackness, one which had held him immobile against his will. For three periods of light and dark he had hidden from them, finding refuge amongst the rubble, easily evading the clean-up crews digging for survivors and salvage. But after three days and nights, he had made a mistake, and been seen by two of the men.

He stood over their still bodies, watching rivulets of red winding their way over the rock-strewn ground, diverting around obstacles too large to flow over. Their eyes were vacant and glassy, devoid of life. He waited, just in case more men were on their way, and when he was confident there would be no further intrusions, he retracted the long swords back into his body, feeling them slide up the inside of his arms, flashing coldly in the moonlight just before they disappeared.

The flash of silver light on metal… an image danced across his mind, and he closed his eyes as it played out before him.

.

_He stood behind a chain-link fence, prowling cat-like back and forth, waiting for… waiting for… gunfire. Yes. Bullets were flying towards him, and in his hands he held long curved swords… items which elicited a great deal of emotion from somewhere deep inside him. He cared about those blades more than he cared about anything else in the world. He didn't feel _whole_ unless he was holding them_.

.

He opened his eyes to darkness, confused. The image, and others like it, had come randomly throughout the past three days. Sometimes they came with faces, and sometimes sounds, but mostly it was just feelings, fleeting emotions which accompanied brief splashes of colour and motion. All of the images had a sense of familiarity about them, as if he'd seen them before, in some other place, at some other time.

Taking a seat on a slab of rock, he looked again at the two bodies, and wondered why he had attacked them. His waking had been… confusing. One moment, all had been blackness and cold, and the next his eyes were open and there was light and pain. He _thought_ he could remember his head being separated from his body, but that, too, could have been another dream. Men could not survive with their heads separated from their body; that much he knew. So… perhaps he wasn't a man. But what _was_ he?

_I am Deadpool._ The thought came easily. Deadpool. Yes. That sounded… right. It was his designation. It was who he _was_. Looking down at his hands, he took in the sight of his skin, dusted with a coat of grey. The bandages wrapped around his lower arms were likewise dirty, but he left them in place. _Deadpool_. It meant… something. He was _part_ of something. But part of _what_? And why couldn't he remember?

He stood up and paced, the moon and the stars sole witnesses to his silent turmoil. What were the images that came to him? Were they dreams, or memories? Whatever they were, he knew he wouldn't be able to figure it out by himself. He didn't know who he was, and he'd just killed two men. He needed help. Perhaps somebody from his past could help him—if indeed, he even _had_ a past. Maybe… maybe… he closed his eyes, and tried to think of a name. He needed to find somebody trustworthy. Somebody who would follow his instructions and not go getting ideas. Somebody like… Bradley!

.

_Another image flashed across his mind. A face; a man with short hair and grey eyes, an easy smile on his lips playing against the nervous tension around his eyes. Young, trusting, eager to please. Bradley would offer his help and ask for nothing in return. The perfect man to go to for something like this._

_._

There was one problem; now he had to remember who, exactly, Bradley _was_, and where he could be found. He glanced at the corpses. Well, neither of them was Bradley. They didn't have the same face as the man in the image inside his head. No, Bradley was probably somewhere far from here.

.

"_Very good. I look forward to seeing the preliminary results. But before we can even think about using him in the field, we have to find a way to control him. I doubt he'll be willing to volunteer his services, once we're through with him." The voice which he knew belonged to a man named Stryker came unbidden into his mind, and it wasn't the only one._

"_Actually, I have an idea regarding that. As you know, I've been reviewing all of the Team X history files, and I'd like to make a suggestion. Actually, an improvement on one of Doctor Cornelius' ideas." This man who spoke wore a long white coat, clean and crisp. A doctor, by the name of Killbrew._

"_I'm listening."_

"_Doctor Cornelius has suggested we implant Weapon XI with a computer processor, to control his actions. I believe the need for such cybernetics would be greatly reduced if we could somehow find a way of controlling him via genetics, specifically, a mutant power."_

"_Go on."_

"_I'm aware that one of your former team members, one Christopher Bradley, was able to manipulate electrical fields and even computers using his mutant ability." The white-coated man waited only long enough to see Stryker nod. "If we could introduce that particular ability to Weapon XI's genetic structure, we might find a way to tap into it, and control him by a similar means."_

"_Can that even be done?"_

"_I believe so. Weapon XI would still require some technological augmentation, of course, but with Bradley's ability to manipulate, we could leave most of Weapon XI's brain intact."_

"_Alright, you've got my interest. What do you need?" asked Stryker._

"_A fresh sample of Bradley's genetic material."_

"_Does Bradley need to be dead or alive for that?"_

"_Does it matter?"_

"_Sure. If you need him alive, I'll send Zero. Otherwise, I'll send Victor."_

_Killbrew shrugged. "A sample is all I need. The state of the subject isn't important."_

"_Then I'll tell Creed I have a new task for him."_

_._

Deadpool shook his head, dispelling the aural hallucinations. No… the voices in his mind must be wrong. The things they spoke of just weren't possible… were they? He didn't know. It all sounded like lunacy. He'd heard the voices and seen the figures through a fuzzy haze, as if he'd only been half awake at the time. He'd probably heard them wrong. Probably made it all up inside his own mind. But then, whatever this 'Weapon XI' was, it was obviously important to the men in his vision. Perhaps finding Weapon XI was the key to finding the answers to who he was.

He set off walking, picking his way easily over the uneven ground. Maybe Weapon XI was buried beneath the rubble, as he had been. It hadn't been easy to dig himself out of that, especially given the fact that his head had been several feet away from his body. Or had it? Perhaps he'd simply been knocked unconscious during The Incident and imagined that his head had been separated from his body. It was the only thing which made sense. Then again, not much about this situation made any sort of sense. From looking at his surroundings, he could tell that one of the large chimney-like structures had collapsed, causing all this dusty chaos. But what on Earth could made a giant concrete chimney just collapse to the ground? And why had he woken at ground zero?

.

_A face flickered to life in his mind's eye, an angry face that glared at him as if he'd personally offended it. The face of a man, attached to a body… a man who attacked him, striking out with sharp metallic cat-like claws. There was something very familiar about that face. He felt as if he ought to be able to put a name to it. A name like… Captain? Well, that was a stupid name. Sounded more like a rank. So perhaps it _was_ a rank. Perhaps the man had a different name. But if he did, Deadpool couldn't remember it. All he could recall was that the man had attacked him, and he had fought back. He hadn't wanted to, but it's what he did. What he felt _commanded_ to do._

_._

After searching the rubble for a couple of hours, he could find no sign of the mysterious 'Weapon XI', though he did manage to unearth a few bodies. They were clad in green uniforms; US army, he knew, though he didn't know _how_ he knew. Most of the deceased had clearly been that way for several days, and the majority of them appeared to have been crushed beneath the falling chimney. None of them were familiar to Deadpool. None of them made visions happen in his mind.

So. He was on an island. He knew that much, because he'd seen the water all around it, whilst hiding from the cleanup crews. He was alive. He knew that, too, because he could feel his heart beating in his chest, could feel the blood pumping through his veins and the air being inhaled and exhaled through his nose. And he was alone. Either he had no friends or family, or they'd abandoned him to his fate. He wasn't sure which was true, and he wasn't sure he wanted to _know_ which was true.

He sat down again, and looked up at the moon as it flooded the island with silver light. His eye caught sight of one of the other chimneys, and he felt a moment of déjà vu. He had a clear memory of being _atop_ one of those chimneys, as incredible as that sounded. Yes, he'd been on the ground one moment, and then high up the next. He'd… teleported up there? Clearly, whoever and whatever he was, he had the ability to travel between two places instantaneously.

Focusing, he tried it now. He imagined himself reappearing beside the corpses, but nothing happened. No matter how much he concentrated, he couldn't make himself teleport. And, come to think of it, he recalled something else, too. He remembered opening his eyes _when they were already open_ and firing some sort of laser beam from them. It sounded completely ridiculous. Perhaps that was yet another event he'd dreamed up during his period of sleeping. Just to be sure, he lifted his hands to his eyes, using his fingertips to probe around them. They _felt_ normal… not that he had much of an idea what normal was supposed to feel like. But he certainly didn't feel as if he had laser vision. This was real life, not some cheesy sci-fi flick.

His fingers tracked down his face, running along the bridge of his nose, down to… well, what he thought should have been his mouth, but there was nothing but smooth skin. Which was strange, because he could _feel_ his jaw working, flexing, and felt that he should be able to open the mouth that he didn't have to eat and drink and talk. But perhaps whatever a Deadpool was, it didn't have a mouth, like normal people.

.

"_He was alert and cognisant for about an hour." The voice of Doctor Killbrew whispered unbidden again inside his mind._

"_Did he say anything?" The second voice belonged to the other man. The one called Stryker._

"_Just that he's going to kill me one day."_

_The other man, Stryker, snorted, sounded amused. "Think yourself lucky. Our Mr Wilson can be quite the talker, but that's easily rectified."_

"_You want me to sever his vocal chords?" Killbrew offered, just like that._

"_No need for such intricate surgery. Just sew his mouth shut. That way he can still scream if he wants to… he just can't talk."_

_._

So. He'd had a mouth, once. And his name was Wilson? That sounded… familiar. But only half-finished. It was probably just part of his name. But what was the rest of it? Maybe Brian. The name Brian Wilson had a familiar ring to it… but he didn't particularly feel like a Brian. No matter, the rest of his name would come in time, or perhaps he'd find someone who could tell him who he was. Not Bradley, obviously, because whoever Bradley was, or had been, he might be dead now, which was very inconvenient and probably quite sad.

Could there be a better way to go about this? If he could piece together his own identity from things he knew about himself, perhaps he wouldn't need outside help. Maybe he could figure out who he was, and why he was here, and what he was supposed to be _doing,_ all on his own. He stood up and began pacing again. Pacing seemed to help. It felt comforting. Now, the facts.

He was Deadpool. Part of his name was Wilson. He had blades hidden inside his arms, and though it hurt to make them come out, he seemed to heal pretty quickly. He may or may not have been headless in the recent past. At one point he'd been able to teleport, though he didn't seem capable of that now, and he may also have possessed some sort of laser-vision, at least until waking from his dream of darkness. He knew a man named Bradley, who was very possibly dead, and he'd fought a Captain atop a very high concrete chimney. His mouth had been sewn shut, allegedly to stop him from talking – maybe to stop him from objecting to something. He apparently knew two people, one called Killbrew and the other called Stryker, who had talked about a mysterious Weapon XI in his presence. Perhaps Weapon XI had something to do with the 'Team X' that the Killbrew man had mentioned. When he thought about it, faces flashed across his vision, and he recalled a voice.

"_Wade, you don't have to do this."_

The voice came from the man with the claws; the Captain. Wade? Yes… Wade sounded _right_. Wade Wilson. That was his name. It was who he had been. And Deadpool… Deadpool was who he was _now_. Wade hadn't wanted to fight the Captain, but Deadpool had been forced to. Forced to by a cold machine voice inside his head, one which controlled his body, and the swords inside his arms.

He couldn't hear the machine voice now. It was silent. Maybe it was dead. Could machines die? He didn't know. Perhaps the Captain knew… if he was still alive. For all Deadpool knew, that particular memory could have been years old. One thing was becoming clear; he'd find no answers amongst this rubble, and in a few hours the sun would be rising, heralding a return of the clean-up crews. Eager for further information, he turned his attention to the nearby square building—a small warehouse—and set off towards it.

The door was unlocked, so he pushed it open and entered the building. There had been some sort of altercation here; there were bullets embedded in the walls, and shattered glass covered the cold hard floor. As well, his eyes picked up scorch marks, places where the warehouse had been heated intensely. He ran his fingers over the bullet holes, feeling the rough edges, wondering what had happened to make all of the people leave. Had they gone because of the chimney collapse, or had something else driven them from this place?

As he walked through the suspiciously empty warehouse, he was struck by a strong sense of familiarity. There was something about this place… he knew it well, yet he couldn't remember a thing about it. A very strange contradiction. Further investigation might yield additional results.

He continued through the building, haunted by ghosts of the past, followed by quiet voices and fleeting images of some other life. He recalled feeling angry, and afraid, and then angry about being afraid… but why? What _was_ this place? What did it _mean_ to him, or at least, the him he had been before now? Who were Stryker, and Killbrew, and the Captain? Why had he been left here alone, instead of evacuated with the others? What he needed was a person to interrogate, or failing that, some sort of written record of what had transpired here. He was disappointed on both fronts; no people remained, and either they'd taken their files and computers with them, or the clean-up crews had removed them after. He felt his helplessness and frustration mounting with every step he took.

As last he came to the only remaining room, and as he approached the door he expected to find it empty, like the others. When he stepped inside, however, he saw a sort of tank, reminiscent of a medieval torture chamber, and he was hit by his most powerful vision yet.

.

"_The integration of Logan's DNA has worked seamlessly," said a man in a white coat; Doctor Killbrew. "Complete assimilation of the genetic sequence which will provide Weapon XI with Weapon X's increased healing factor."_

"_Excellent," said Stryker._

_A third man, dressed in a white coat like Killbrew's, glanced over a computer monitor. "We're ready to proceed with the next stage."_

"_Which I will leave in your more than capable hands, Doctor Cornelius. I take it the grafting went well?"_

"_Yes, Colonel. We've attached the blades to the bones of Wilson's forearms using very small, lightweight brackets. We hope that once the bonding process begins, the blades, like his bones, will be coated with a layer of adamantium, making them unbreakable weapons."_

"_And there was no rejection?"_

"_None. I think that because we grafted the blades onto the bone _before_ introducing the healing-factor DNA sequence, Weapon XI's immune system automatically assumed the blades to be part of the body."_

"_Excellent. Then by all means, begin immediately. And please, let's try not to have a repeat of the last adamantium bonding process, hmm? Until we can fine-tune the computer control, we'd be at Weapon XI's mercy if he managed to escape, as Logan did."_

"_Not to worry, Colonel," said Killbrew, "we've restrained him, and we have guards standing by with enough adamantium bullets to put him down permanently in the unlikely event that he should break free."_

"_Very well. Proceed as planned." Stryker's face loomed into view, looking down at him from above. "I wish I could say this wouldn't hurt, Wade, but it will be agonising for you. Once it's over, however, you will be perfect. The crowning achievement of the Weapon X program. Deadpool. Weapon XI. Hopefully the first of many. Your country appreciates your sacrifice. Goodbye, Wade."_

_He felt himself lowered, felt his heart-rate rising as fear and anger kicked in again. This wasn't right! He didn't deserve this! He was a man! He'd served the United States; they owed him more than this! But he could not say the words out loud, because they had silenced him. Taken away his ability to say 'no'. Taken away his right to freedom of speech. They'd turned him into a slave. A tool. A _thing_ to be toyed with for their own benefit, with no concern for the life they were destroying._

_Water enveloped him, cold and biting, and for a brief moment he dared to hope that this would be a true end, that he would drown in this tank and rob them of their chance to make him their weapon. By the time he realised a mask was clamped over his face, allowing him to continue breathing through his nose, it was too late to struggle. His body was held down by shackles so tight that they afforded no movement, even with his enhanced strength. Strength that had come from another fallen soldier, who'd been nothing more than a weapon to his masters._

_A noise reached his ears through the water, a mechanical whirring, and he saw things descend from above, screaming as they moved. They entered the water which began to hiss and bubble, and as the things were lowered down towards him he understood what they were; drill bits, aimed at his arms and his legs and his face. Tears of anger left the corners of his eyes, absorbed by the water. Hadn't they done enough to him already?_

_The drills were lowered, and he tried to struggle. He felt the hot metal pierce his flesh and his body began to thrash automatically, causing even more pain as the metal bits tore muscles which rapidly mended themselves. He knew that he was hurting himself more by thrashing, but he couldn't have stopped even if he wanted to. His body had entered an unconscious survival mode, every cell within him screaming to get away from this pain, to save himself from what was to come. He felt his bones crackling as he flailed within his restraints, felt tiny snaps of smaller bones which had been unable to take the pressure. His eyes clouded with red as his own blood began to fill the tank; it was small relief that he had no idea where the blood was coming from. Hopefully, his brain. Hopefully, this would be the end of it._

_He'd thought that nothing could be more painful than having his body drilled into, but then they began pumping boiling liquid into his bones, and he found a new threshold of pain. He begged for unconsciousness, prayed for the release of death, but neither was granted to him. There was only pain, searing heat within, contrasting with burning cold without. _

_The drills were retracted. The heat within him began to cool, and his body ceased thrashing as severely. The pain began to subside, but the _memory_ of it remained. Every agonising second was an eternity of torture he would never forget. A single thought sustained his life, kept his near-broken heart beating, gave him the will to keep drawing breath through that mask; he was now a weapon. He was a perfect weapon. And to thank them for everything they'd done to him, he would kill them all. Each and every man and woman who had breathed the air of this place would be dead before he allowed himself to rest._

"_Bonding process complete," said Killbrew, his voice distorted by the water. "Adamantium reservoirs depleted A complete success."_

"_I don't believe it," said Cornelius, voice tinged with awe, and something else. "His heart didn't stop. We experienced none of the problems that we did with Weapon X. I think we may have found the perfect genetic template for cloning."_

"_Excellent!" Stryker sounded pleased. "And congratulations to both of you. Now… initiate the communications uplink to the cybernetic implant in Wilson's brain, and erase his memory."_

_._

The flashback ended, and Deadpool opened his eyes. The tank stood there, cold, empty, mocking him. He extended the blades from his arms and slashed across the tank, bringing the blades round again and again, until nothing but chunks of concrete and metal were left. Then he sank down to the ground as a darkness settled over his mind.

He could stop searching, now. He didn't need to look any further for Weapon XI. He _was_ Weapon XI.

o - o - o - o - o

The first sliver of golden sunlight flowed across the horizon. Wade noticed it, but dismissed it from his thoughts. The first cleanup crews wouldn't be arriving for another couple of hours, if they held true to their usual schedules, and he had more important things to think about right now than a sunrise. So many thoughts were swirling through his mind that he didn't know which of them to address first.

He'd been a man, a soldier, but had been betrayed by the people he served, turned into some sort of living weapon. His sole consolation was that with the destruction that had happened here, it wasn't likely they'd attempt this again on anybody else. At least, not any time soon. He would, of course, track down anybody with knowledge of this process and kill them just to make sure… but there would be time for that later. First, he had to get fixed.

His main problem with that was he didn't know how much fixing he needed. He still couldn't completely remember who he'd been. He had no idea which abilities were his and which had been grafted onto him by those bastards in the military and their white-coated minions. Clearly, the blades did not belong in his arms; even if his memory hadn't told him that, he knew that it wasn't right for a man to have weapons inside his flesh. As for the rest of it… the teleporting appeared to be gone. Why, or how, wasn't important. It was something he could no longer do, therefore he could happily forget about it and move on from here.

The man, Stryker, and the other two, had talked about things. Cybernetics. Computers. Control. If he had to hazard a guess, it would be that they'd shoved some sort of computer chip inside his head, to make him more pliable. After all, computers couldn't talk back, could they? All computers did was follow their programming. They didn't have opinions, or personalities, or a soul. They were just tools… one tool, to control another. A bitter thought.

The computer in his brain wasn't working anymore, he suspected. Once, it had suppressed his thoughts, controlled his body, kept him prisoner inside his own flesh. Well, never again! From this moment on, he would never again trust technology! Perhaps he ought to destroy computers whenever he found them… though it would probably be easier to destroy the people who made and _programmed_ said computers. End the threat by going right to the source. Yes, computer nerds would be the next to die, after the Weapon X staff.

But, again, there would be plenty of time for that later. Right now, the help he needed was more immediate. He needed to get his mouth working again, because mouths were used for eating food, and although he wasn't hungry at the moment—and hadn't been hungry since waking, which was slightly troubling—he knew that he would be hungry _eventually._ Also, he'd happily get rid of the blades in his arms. Perhaps he could find a surgeon to remove them. Or, failing that, a construction worker with an angle grinder and a steady hand.

He heard the sound of approaching motor boats, and stood up, looking out towards the water. So. The clean up crews were early today. Possibly they'd found their dead colleagues last night and decided to make the most of the daylight hours to search for the perfect weapon the government had unleashed on them. Which probably meant they'd come with guards. Lots and lots of guards, with guns. Maybe dogs, too. He quite liked dogs, but he didn't like guards, or guns. They were so loud, so crass… both of them.

Another scene played across his memory.

"_I already _am_the best marksman in the world, and I don't need my name on some trophy to prove it. I never miss what I aim for."_

There was a face, to go with the words; the face of a cold-eyed, olive-skinned man who always carried at least one pistol around with him. _Agent Zero._ Bootlicker of the man named Stryker. A typical good soldier, always hanging around waiting for a kind word and a scrap of something to eat from his master's table. Zero was one of those who'd captured him and brought him to this place. Hopefully the man was dead, now. Deadpool had never liked him. Oh sure, he was a great guy to have around in combat, and he could shoot the wings off a fly at two hundred feet whilst it was mid-flight, or whatever. But he was so… boring. No sense of fun.

The increasing noise of the motor boats brought his attention back to the present. Yes, it was past time to be gone from here. There was nothing left for him in the ruins of this place. He needed to find somewhere new. He needed to find help. Perhaps from the Captain in his memory, perhaps from Bradley if he was still alive, or perhaps from someone else. His memories would come back, eventually. They _had_ to. He needed to know who he was. Who he had been. Who he would become.

Taking a deep breath, he threw himself into the icy cold water, experiencing another unpleasant déjà vu of the tank, and then began to kick. He'd always loved swimming, but now it seemed particularly difficult. It wasn't as if he was wearing much in the way of clothes—he would rectify that soon enough—but he just felt… heavier.

_Oh, right. Adamantium stuff on my bones,_ he thought, as he swam around the point of the island, out of view of the approaching boats. _Probably weighing me down. Good job I have super-stamina. At least, I _hope_ I have super-stamina. I have no idea where I am, or how far I'll have to swim to find help._

Without so much as a backwards glance at the island, he set his sights on the far bank, which looked sparsely populated, and swam towards his new life.


	2. The Mean City

Lazarus

* * *

_My memory was shattered, fragmented, but I remembered enough. Once I had been a man, and I would be again. Hopefully. If not, then I would at least exact revenge upon the ones who had done this to me. A better man than I would have called it justice, but I wasn't interested in justice. The only thing I cared for was vengeance. They had broken me completely, and yet I would find a way to be whole again._

_Then I would come for them._

* * *

_2. The Mean City_

Constance Harrison opened her locker and cast her eyes over her own tired face reflected in the small mirror which hung from the inside of the door. Part of her ponytail had worked its way free, probably around the time Mrs Carter in room six had gone into tachycardia, causing stray strands of red hair to stick up in various directions. Adding to the frazzled look were dark circles beneath her eyes which showed just how busy her twelve-hour shift had been. Long shifts weren't the norm at West Hope Hospital… unless it was understaffed. Which it currently was. Meaning all available doctors and nurses had to pull extra shifts. The overtime pay was welcome; the exhaustion was not.

The door to the changing room opened, and another of the nurses walked in. Mel's uniform was bright white; it was the start of her shift. It contrasted sharply with the blood-and-vomit coloured uniform that Constance stripped out of and threw into the laundry bin.

"Just got off shift, Connie?" Mel asked.

"Yeah," she replied as she pulled on a brown skirt and a dark blue shirt. "Can't wait to get home. I feel like I could crash for days."

"I know the feeling," the other woman sighed. "Seems like we're hardly away from the place, doesn't it?"

"I just hope we get more staff soon," Connie said. She resisted the urge to rub her hand across her eyes; smearing her mascara would do absolutely nothing for those dark circles. "Otherwise the rest of us will be off with stress and exhaustion."

Mel nodded in sympathy, pinning her name badge to her blouse. Then she checked her perfect curls in the mirror, and nodded to herself before turning to Connie. "Get yourself home and take it easy, honey. I know you've got a few days off, so just spend your time relaxing and having fun. Promise me you won't even _think_ of work whilst you're out of the mad-house."

"I promise," Connie smiled. She gave her friend a brief hug. "Good luck tonight; you're going to need it. I think it must be a full moon out there, because all of the crazies are out."

"I'll survive," Mel said. She squeezed Connie's arm in thanks and then left the changing room.

Not eager to spend another moment than necessary in the hospital, Connie shut and locked her locker, picked up her bag and her coat, and followed Mel out of the door. As usual, the corridors were a bustle of action as doctor and nurses hurried from place to place, clipboards in hands, and porters and orderlies ferried around patients and empty gurneys. A few staff members called out goodnight to Connie, but most were too busy to notice her quietly passing through the corridors and through the bustle of the ER. At ten minutes past midnight, she stepped out of the hospital's front door and into the cool, smog-laden air of New York City.

Wrapping her coat closed around herself, she set off down the familiar streets. Sometimes, mostly when it was raining, she took a taxi home, but usually she preferred the seven-block walk. It gave her a chance to wind down before reaching her apartment, allowed her to dismiss thoughts of work with every step she distanced herself from the hospital. And she liked to hear the night-sounds, though in New York those sounds were mainly wailing cats, barking dogs and drunks mumbling to themselves; that was, of course, when she could hear anything over the sound of the traffic. New York never stopped, not even at midnight. The roads got quieter, but never silent.

Once, when she was younger, she'd gone to stay with her aunt all the way across country, in Washington State, and found the silence of the barely-tamed countryside unsettling. Though some people found comfort in the sounds of nature, Connie was not one of them. She was a city-girl through and through, and when she reached a familiar fork in her journey—one way affording her a ten-minute short-cut through back-alleys, the other taking her on a longer trip down the main streets—she chose the former without hesitation. When it had been a particularly difficult day at work, which usually meant a kid dying, she almost always chose the longer route, to give her mind the extra time to work it over and wind down, but today, although stressful, hadn't been overly tragic. Only two deaths, during her shift; a drunk who'd fallen face-down in a fountain and already been DOA, and car crash victim—sad, but not sad enough to warrant an extra ten minutes out of her bed.

As she walked down the alley, the shadows deepened as the streetlights faded away. She clutched her bag closer to herself, as she always did, and found her senses straining to detect things she couldn't see. Over a nearby fence, two cats fought, their screams feral and hissing, until a window was opened and water deposited on them with an angry shout. She hoped it wasn't hot water. Though she could understand the person's frustration, she hated cruelty to animals more than almost anything else.

A metallic clanging sound from the shadows startled her, until a gleam of metal shone bright in the moonlight. The shopping cart was pushed by an old bearded man, his green coat long faded, his brown boots worn and scuffed. Mr Grimes had been an army veteran, and like many in the army, he'd become lost after leaving it. Unable to adapt to civvie life, as he called it, he'd lost his wife and kid and the job he'd had cleaning aisles in the local 7-11, and taken to roaming the streets looking for action. Unable to find it, and without a house to return to, he'd merely stayed here, collecting things to trade with other vagrants.

"Good evening, Sergeant Grimes," Connie said.

"Hmph. Connie. You damn nearly gave me a heart attack. You should know better than to sneak up on an old man like that."

"Sorry." She reached into her bag, pulling out two items she knew would win her favour. "Can I make it up to you with a fruit cup?"

"Ahh, you know how to treat an old man," he smiled, accepting the cup and the tiny plastic spoon. "I take it those cafeteria staff still haven't figured out who's been pilfering their fruit cups, then?"

"I'm very careful," she said with a wink.

"Good, good." He glanced around at the shadows, then ambled closer to her, dragging his shopping cart behind. He spoke again, in barely a whisper. "You get yourself home, Miss. Tonight's not the night for young women to go wandering the streets alone. I've seen things in the shadows… more than cats are out here tonight."

"Of course, Mr Grimes. I'll go right away," she said in earnest. Poor Grimes. He'd been seeing things lurking in the shadows for years, now. More than once she'd tried to talk him into coming to the hospital with her, so that he could at least get away from the streets, maybe spend an evening in the warmth of the ER, but he always refused. Said the government were watching him, and they'd know if he stepped foot inside a hospital. He was a harmless old man, really.

"Good. Now, be off with you. And thanks for the fruit cup."

He shuffled off, pushing his rattly silver shopping cart in front of him. Connie smiled as he disappeared down another alley, then resumed her journey. One day, the cafeteria staff really _would_ figure out who was stealing the fruit cups, but until then it was a minor transgression she was willing to commit to help a man who had nobody else to turn to. She just wished he'd trust her a little more.

The sound of the traffic died away somewhat as she moved further into the alleys, until it was little more than a quiet hum in the background. Because her mind was still on Mr Grimes, she didn't see the way the shadows moved, didn't hear the footsteps into the darkness. By the time she realised she was no longer alone, five men had surrounded her, stepping out into the dim light of the alley, their postures and shadowed faces making them frightening caricatures.

Slowly she stopped, heart thudding fast inside her chest, and reached down towards her bag, sliding her fingers inside, searching for the pepper spray within. One of the men stepped forward, a leer on his face.

"You lost, Miss?" he said.

"No, not lost, thank you," she replied. Part of her mentally screamed for Grimes to return; the other part screamed for him to stay away. New York was a dangerous city, and she'd already been mugged twice within the past three years. After the first time, she'd learnt not to carry anything more valuable than a few notes in her purse; her apartment keys were hidden away in the inside pocket of her coat.

"You look lost to me," the man replied. She could smell alcohol on his breath. Not the stale alcohol of a long-time alcoholic, but fresh alcohol, like the smell of someone who'd just got home after a long night of drinking with his friends. "Maybe we should help you home."

"That won't be necessary," she said stiffly. Her fingertips found the pepper spray, and her hand closed around it. She lifted her bag up, holding it out to the man. "Look, if you're after my belongings, just take them. I don't want any trouble."

"Pretty woman like you's gotta have more than a few belongings to give," the man leered.

Without word or warning, she pulled her hand out of her bag and fired the pepper spray into his eyes. He yelled in pain, his arm coming up to protect his burning vision.

"Bitch!" he swore, stepping back and tripping over a trashcan lid. "Get her, you idiots!"

Her heart began to pound more swiftly, and she turned on the spot, aiming the spray at one of the other men. Someone behind her knocked the can out of her hand, and she was pushed roughly against the alley wall. She heard a _crack_ as her forehead connected with dirty stone, felt something warm and wet trickle down her face, and a terrified scream forced its way out of her lungs before a hand was clamped over her mouth. She felt an arm wrapped around her as another hand grabbed roughly at her breast, and a single thought passed through her mind.

_I should have taken a taxi._

o - o - o - o - o

New York. The windy city. Or was that Detroit, or Chicago? Not that it mattered. Once city was much the same as another. Full of little people living their little lives, thinking little thoughts, not seeing the bigger picture around them. They cared for nothing but their own ennui, running themselves into the ground with their unimportant jobs. Here, in New York, a thousand failed college students flipped burgers for a living.

Burgers. Deadpool could remember the taste of burgers. Big, thick, juicy hunks of meat wedged between a bun. Fred Dukes had loved burgers, too. It was the only thing he could remember about the man; that he was large, and that he wanted to open his own burger restaurant. That thought had been in the back of his mind, as he'd travelled the lonely roads; perhaps Fred Dukes had come to New York, and opened a burger place in the city. Perhaps Fred Dukes, whoever he was, would have some answers.

It hadn't been easy, to get here. The man who was known as Wade Wilson, or Deadpool, or Weapon XI, knew that hitch-hiking would be out of the question. It wasn't as if he could just ask to be dropped off at New York, what with lacking a mouth and all, and he suspected the local highway patrols would be on the look-out for suspicious-looking escaped mutant monsters. So he'd travelled the only other way he could think how; waited for a truck to pass and used his super-agility to jump on top of it. It wasn't hard to keep a hold on a fast-moving truck, when you had adamantium-coated blades in your arms.

From his vantage point above the police station, he could see much of the surrounding city, bathed as it was in the moonlight. Various neon signed pronounced fast food joints, strip bars and bookmakers, but he couldn't see a 'Dukes' amongst them. Of course, it had been a shot in the dark. There were hundreds, if not thousands of places where Fred Dukes could have gone to open his restaurant. New York had simply been Deadpool's best guestimate. Now, it seemed, finding someone who could tell him about his past was going to be harder than first anticipated.

There was a scream from somewhere in the near distance, a terror-filled cry for help. Part of his mind told him to ignore it; it wasn't any of his business. But another part of his mind identified with that scream. He, too, had cried for help, raging against the inside of his mind because his ability to say 'no' had been taken away. And that part of his mind pointed out that if he ignored a cry for help, he was no better than the men who had silenced him

_Stupid mind._

He ran across the rooftop, and when he came to the gap which separated the building from its neighbour, he jumped. This… this running, jumping, moving quickly, fighting with the element of surprise, all felt familiar to him. It came to him as easy as breathing, and as he slowed to get his bearings he heard voices from below. He glanced down and saw four—no, five—men and a woman. One of the men had the woman up against the wall, and looked to be tearing at her clothes.

Deadpool, the perfect weapon, watched impassively, but Wade Wilson shook his head. Any man who had to force himself onto a woman was no man at all. Half the fun was in the chase and the pursuit, but if you couldn't make a woman come to you by her choice, then you were little more than an animal. He took control of his body and dropped down from the building, landing with graceful, cat-like silence.

The men had not yet seen him. He extended the blades from his arms and ran one of them through the chest. His death cry was a warning to the others; they turned, fear and anger etched into their faces.

"Kill him!" one of them yelled.

Two of the men rushed forward, one brandishing a knife, the other a baseball bat. The one with the bat struck first, swinging his weapon back. Whilst it was still on the backward swing, Wade slashed with one of his blades, eviscerating the thug, who looked momentarily surprised to see his entrails pouring out onto the floor. And, because evisceration was a long and slow method of death, Wade severed the man's windpipe cleanly in two.

The thug with the knife saw his chance to strike, and rushed forward with his little pig-sticker held high. Wade let him come, and at the last moment deflected the blow, using the man's momentum to sweep him aside, ending in a decapitation. The offending head rolled a few feet, then came to a dead stop. Literally.

Two men remained, and neither of them looked keen to engage their antagonist—one of them had red eyes, and seemed to be struggling to see properly. The other man turned and ran, clearly hoping to escape, but Wade gave him no chance. He leapt forward, his muscles bunching beneath him, propelling him through the air, over his fleeing opponent, and he turned a somersault before landing on the ground and using both blades to slice through the torso of the man.

Another opponent down, Wade turned his gaze to the last of the thugs. The man threw down his weapon, sheer terror on his face.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean it."

The words sounded hollow, just as hollow as Stryker's voice had sounded when he'd told Wade his country appreciated his sacrifice. Empty words to placate an angry foe, and Wade was having none of it. One last time, he brought his right arm around in an arc, and took off the head of the last thug. The body dropped to the floor, painting the walls in a red spray. With no more enemies to fight, he retracted the blades and turned towards the woman.

She was half-slumped against the wall, her clothes skewed but undamaged. The same could not be said for her body; from her head, blood poured, flowing down one of her cheeks, dripping onto the floor. Her eyes glanced over him, then rolled back into her head. She slumped fully to the ground, her limbs resting at uncomfortable angles.

Wade shook his head. _Women_.

**That's gratitude for you,** Deadpool agreed.

o - o - o - o - o

Connie woke slowly, her mind fuzzy. Her body felt heavy and sluggish, like she'd just spent the whole night partying, and for the moment she kept her eyes closed, trying to prolong the drowsy feeling that wrapped its silken fingers around her mind.

She'd had a horrible dream, frightening in its content and intensity. Normally her dreams were quite benign, but last night… she felt herself shiver at the memory of it. It was the most frightening thing she had ever experienced in her life, despite the fact that it had been a creation of her own mind, and she hoped she'd never experience anything like it again.

Violence was something she cared nothing for, and had always avoided. She didn't even like watching violent films, and her dream last night had been far worse than any movie. The men who attacked her had been bad enough, but the monster that had appeared from nowhere and started beheading people had been terrifyingly brutal.

But it was just a dream. It was over now. Dreams couldn't hurt you – not when you were awake. And, she decided, it was past time she got up and started doing chores. She must have been very tired last night; she couldn't even remember getting into bed. In fact, she couldn't remember anything of her journey home… it seemed to blur into the dream-world.

Opening her eyes, she was almost blinded by bright sunlight shining into the room. Damn, had she forgotten to close the curtains before climbing into bed? That wasn't like her at all. She always closed the curtains, because birds had a habit of flying into her bedroom window during the early hours, injuring themselves and waking her.

She tried to roll over, away from the light, and groaned in pain. Her shoulder felt sore, her muscles aching, and there was a sharp shooting pain in her head. Slowly she opened her eyes a little wider, and realised she wasn't in her bed at all; she was on the sofa of her apartment's living room, and instead of a pillow her head was resting on her rolled-up coat. A coat which looked rather more red than it should.

Fear rose from within, twisting around her stomach, clawing at her heart with its icy fingers. There was blood on her coat, and when she lifted her fingers to her forehead, she understood why. It was _her_ blood. She'd been bleeding from a cut to her head, and her coat had been soaking up the liquid.

Mouth dry, she attempted to push herself up, and gave another quiet cry as pain shot through her shoulder once more. Suddenly, dream and reality mingled, rushing over her tired mind. Her nightmare hadn't been a figment of her imagination. It had been real. She had been attacked on her way home. She'd been shoved against a wall, pinned in place whilst one of her attackers had tried to grope her. A monster really had come and killed the men who'd cornered her… and saved her from being molested, or possibly worse. But how had she got home?

Trying to ignore the way the light hurt her eyes, she looked around the rest of her apartment for some sort of clue as to what had happened after she'd passed out. Her shoes were pushed under the coffee table, out of the way of where she might walk, so clearly she'd managed to get away from the alley, get here and remove both her shoes and her coat. The fact that she'd had the presence of mind to do that much was reassuring; the gap in her memory was not. She knew how dangerous head injuries could be.

Movement from further away caught her eye and she glanced up, then froze in fear. The monster that had killed the men in the alley was standing in the corner of her apartment behind the front door, watching her with unblinking eyes. She'd only caught a glimpse of it last night, in the dark alley, and it looked even more terrifying in daylight. It had the body of a man and wore dirty grey trousers and black boots which reminded her of Mr Grimes, but there was nothing human about its features. It possessed no hair, and where should have been a mouth was just smooth skin, which looked like scar tissue. Black patches encircled its eyes, as if the flesh had been burnt away.

Despite the aches and pains in her muscles, and the injury to her head, she leapt off the sofa and walked backwards to the far wall, where the window to the fire escape beckoned to her. The room spun and lurched as she walked, but she didn't dare turn her back to the creature, in case it attacked again. There was no sign of the swords it had used to decapitate the men in the alley, but that didn't mean it wasn't dangerous.

"Stay away from me," she said, reaching around behind her back and blindly groping for the window latch. "I have pepper spray." Belatedly, she remembered it was in her bag, which was underneath the table next to her shoes. Or perhaps she'd dropped it in the alley, and it was there still.

She glanced to the telephone hung on her wall, but wasn't sure if she could reach it and dial 911 before the monster could stop her. So far it hadn't moved a muscle, but if she made a dash for the phone, it might react. Why was it even here? Had it followed her home from the alley?

"Look," she said, trying to combat the nausea and fear which duelled for dominance within her, "I don't want any more trouble. Whatever money is in my purse is yours; just take it and go."

The creature continued staring, completely unmoving. What the hell did it want? Why was it just standing there? Not that she _wanted_ it to attack, but at least some action would be better than this indecision. Her fingers had yet to find the damned window catch and until they did she was stuck in her apartment with the murderous thing.

"Alright," she said, hoping to encourage it to leave, "you don't want money. Whatever you want, just take it with my thanks." Suddenly, she felt foolish. She was talking to it as if it was a human being. For all she knew, it had no more intelligence than a dog. "Can you even understand me?"

The monster tilted its head a little to one side, like a bird trying to figure out how to get at a snail inside its shell. Well, that was something, at least. Desperate for something else to do, she looked again around the room, and something finally hit her; she never left her shoes under the table. Her mother said it was bad luck to do that. A foolish superstition, but one that Connie obeyed.

"I didn't walk back here myself, last night, did I? You brought me here, didn't you? After you killed those men," she asked, with no response. The monster's hazel eyes remained locked on her face. Another thought, a chilling one, flickered across her mind. "How did you know where I live?"

The monster finally reacted. It started to walk forward, and Connie frantically scrabbled for the window latch. She didn't care about keeping her back away from the creature now; she turned and opened it, and quickly paused to glance back. But the monster wasn't looming over her, ready to kill her, as she'd feared. Instead, it had picked up her bag from beneath the table and pulled something out of it. It held the papery object out towards Connie, and for the first time her nurse training kicked in, and she clocked the blood-stained bandages wrapped around its lower arms.

Every fibre of her being, the primitive part of the human mind which had millennia of survival experience, told her to climb out of the window and use the fire escape to flee. But the more civilised part of her mind, which wouldn't let her walk past a hungry man in the street without buying him breakfast, stopped her. The monster's outstretched hand still held the paper, its eyes watching her face as she considered her options.

Against her better instincts, she left the window—but kept it open, just in case—and took a cautious step towards the monster. Inching forward, she finally found herself within reach of the object it held, and she quickly grabbed it before the monster could grab her. She retreated back towards the window, then looked down at the name on the envelope.

_Constance Harrison, Apartment 323b, Brook Building, Park Road, Brooklyn, New York._

Of course. Her pay slip from work. She'd forgotten that was in her bag. The monster must have rifled through her belongings and found the address in her bag and her keys in her coat. But if so, that meant…

"Wait a minute," she said. "You can read?" It nodded its head. "Can you also write?" Another nod.

She walked over to one of her small cupboards and took out a pen and a notepad. She set them down on the small dining table, retreated back to the safety of the open window and gestured for him to use them. He understood immediately, picking up both the pen and the paper and scribbling something down. When he turned the pad around, to show her what he'd written, her fear was replaced with shock, and surprise.

_My name is Wade. I need your help._

Name? Monsters didn't have names; she was quite sure of that. They were things which lurked in shadows and forests and sometimes air vents, chasing down heroes and innocent victims. And they certainly couldn't write.

"You mean… you're a… person?" she asked, mentally skipping over the words 'man' and 'human being' which seemed a little too broad. The monster… Wade… nodded again, and Connie subjected him to a long visual examination. He claimed to be a person, and yet very little about him seemed human at all. There could be only one explanation. "Are you a mutant?"

She had heard about mutants in the news. Every time there was a crime committed which involved a mutant, it got heavy coverage, but she knew there were also some mutants who did good; Spider Man, for example, and Captain America. They weren't just mutants, they were superheroes. At the hospital, she often had to treat people in emergency situations who didn't have medical insurance, and there were times when she'd suspected some of her patients of being mutants. But she hadn't said anything, because to be accused of being a mutant was to be shunned and ostracised. She'd even heard some of the doctors talking amongst themselves, saying they wouldn't treat any mutants even if they were insured. It was a sentiment Connie didn't agree with.

Wade scribbled something on the pad, and turned it around again.

_Yes, but that's not why I'm like this._ He flipped the page over, and further scribbling ensued. _I was normal. They experimented on me. Changed me._

"Who did this to you?" she asked, horrified and angry that anyone could treat another living being this way, much less another living person.

_Can't say. Too dangerous. Need your help, then I'll go. I promise._

"What do you need my help with?" she asked. She was just a nurse. Nobody important.

_Help fix me. Give me back my life. Make me the way I was._

"I… I'm not sure I can do that, Wade," she said. "I don't even know what was done to you in the first place, much less how to reverse whatever procedures they put you through. I'm not a doctor, I'm just a nurse." The disappointment in his eyes was heart-wrenching, so she lifted her chin and grasped for her most confident tone. "I don't know how much I can do to help you, but I'll do everything within my power. I just hope it will be enough.

_Thank you._

She smiled, then winced as the action sent pain through her head. A warm trickle of blood began to slide down her skin. "First, though, I need to fix myself up. Then I can concentrate on fixing you up."

Skirting past him, she went into her bedroom and brought her emergency first aid kit out from under her bed. Old habits died hard, and trying to get a medical professional to give up his or her first aid kit was like trying to get a sheep to give up wearing its woolly coat. Connie took the first aid kit out into the living room, where Wade was still standing with pad and pen in hand, and put it down on the small coffee table. She brought a clasp-mirror out from her bag, then set it on the table, angled up so she could see her face.

The cut on her forehead was jagged and deep, but smaller than she had expected. From her kit she took out a couple of sterile wipes and used them to clean around the wound, then removed a stitching needle and surgical cotton from equally sterile packets and threaded the latter through the former. She'd had stitches before, and done them on others hundreds of times, so she was expecting the small prick of pain as she pierced her own skin with the needle. She wasn't expecting her own hand to shake, though, and stopped to take a few deep breaths before pulling the stitching through.

As she worked on closing up the gash in her head, she was aware of Wade moving around the room, watching her from various angles. It was slightly unnerving, because she still wasn't sure if she could believe or trust him… but what other choice did she have? He'd saved her from violence, and asked for her help. To deny him that help would be cruel and ungrateful. Besides, at least whilst he was here, he wasn't out there, hurting anyone else.

Finally finished with her stitches, she snipped the end of the thread and surveyed her handiwork. Not bad, to say she'd done it herself. Wade was back in the corner now, beside the door, still watching. Well, if she was going to help him, it was going to be on her terms.

"If you want me to help you," she told him, "I won't have you armed. I want you to give me whatever knives you had last night, so I can dispose of them safely. I've seen more than enough men stabbed to last a lifetime."

He didn't move his body, but long metal blades pierced the backs of his hands, sliding down towards the floor. Connie jumped in fright, knocking over her mirror, but thankfully it didn't break. Seven years' bad luck was the last thing she needed right now.

"My god," she said, when the weapons stopped extending from his arms. She wanted to get up and examine them, to see how, exactly, that was happening without him bleeding everywhere and without it causing him excruciating pain, but she didn't dare move. She felt sick with horror as she realised the full extent of the 'experimenting' that had been done on him. "Does that hurt?" she asked.

He shrugged, and retracted the blades, and Connie found herself staring at his hands. She didn't _want_ to, but as much as she knew it was rude to stare, she couldn't help herself. Just what, exactly, had the mysterious 'they' done to him? Had he escaped from some lab, or been set free by his creators? Was his creator a lone nutcase, a Dr Frankenstein of the eighties, or had this been done by a group of people who dared call themselves doctors whilst ignoring their Hippocratic oath? She had so many questions, but there were more pressing matters to attend to right now.

She stepped forward, because she was conscious that despite Wade's monstrous appearance, there was a person somewhere underneath, a person who had clearly been subjected to terrible, terrible things against his will. The last thing she wanted was to alienate him from humanity even further.

"Wade," she said, stopping just out of arm's reach. Now that she was closer, she could see the scarring on his hands and face, and faded marks on his body that looked like long-healed wounds. The thought that somebody had _done_ this to him made her feel sick with disgust. "I realised we haven't properly been introduced. My name's Connie. Connie Harrison. And I'm going to help you. I promise."

She offered her hand, whilst one little part of her brain screamed a warning about blades, and he shook it. His hand felt just like any other person's hand; he had no monstrously sharp nails, no bone-crushing grip. Just warm skin covered in a fine layer of greyish dust. And though he couldn't smile, she saw his eyes portraying gratitude, and knew she was doing the right thing.


	3. A New Friend

Lazarus

* * *

_I had an ally. Connie said she would help me, and I believed her, despite my recent negative experience with medical professionals, and despite the fact that I scared her. I couldn't blame her. Last night, whilst she was unconscious, I saw my reflection in her bathroom mirror. It's probably a good thing I can't remember what I used to look like, because I doubt I'd recognise myself. All I know is that I don't look like a person anymore. No wonder she thought I was a monster. It's just one more reason for revenge. They didn't just steal my life… they stole my face._

* * *

_3. A New Friend_

The apartment was quiet. Connie had showered and changed then gone out, claiming she needed to buy some things. Wade wasn't worried. She'd be back. She'd made a promise, and he considered himself a good judge of character; she'd not break that promise.

How fortunate it was, that he'd heard her cry for help, and that she was a nurse, of all things. A nurse was far more useful to him than a banker, or a mechanic, or pretty much anything, really. Connie would have access to medical equipment that could be used to fix him. And the sooner he was fixed, the sooner he could hunt down the bastards who had done this to him and make them pay. After asking them some pointed questions, of course.

Though his memories did seem to be coming back, it was a slow process, and they always returned fragmented. He'd have two flashes of being inside some military facility, followed by a flash of hiking through some jungle, and then a flash of his former life, when he was relatively sure he'd done mercenary work. It meant that everything came back jumbled; it gave him snippets of information, but no context. Sometimes he heard voices, but couldn't understand what they were saying because the words were distorted. At other times he remembered names, but didn't get faces to go with them. In short, his memory was virtually useless. Sooner or later, he'd have to find somebody who could help him make sense of all of this. Preferably give him answers to his questions and help fill in some of the blanks.

He took this opportunity to look around Connie's apartment a little more. On one of the sideboards was a photograph of her with people he assumed were her family; a mother and father, and what was likely a brother, given the fact that he'd searched her wardrobes and determined she lived alone here. That was something in his favour, because he suspected an overprotective husband or boyfriend would have hindered his attempts to get help.

Photographs weren't the only things on the sideboard. There were ornaments, too, little statues of cats and dogs and birds and even a couple of pigs. From this he determined that she liked animals. Maybe she had the statues because the apartment owners wouldn't let their tenants keep pets.

**I wonder how they feel about their tenants harbouring mutants,** mused Deadpool.

There was a record player on a small table in the corner of the room, with a black disc already in place. He flipped the switch to the 'on' position and watched the record begin to spin, then lifted the needle arm from its cradle, placing it gently down in one of the grooves. The crooning baritone of Johnny Cash began to play, and he listened to a couple of verses, trying to identify the song.

_Oh they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise_

_Oh they tell me of a home far away_

_Oh they tell me of a home far beyond the skies_

_Oh they tell me of an unclouded day_

_Oh the land of the cloudless day_

_Oh the land of an unclouded sky_

_Oh they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise_

_Oh they tell me of an unclouded day_

_Oh they tell me of a home where my friends have gone_

_Oh they tell me of that land far away_

_Where the tree of life in eternal bloom_

_Sheds its fragrance through the unclouded day_

_Oh the land of a cloudless day_

_Oh the land of an unclouded sky_

_Oh they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise_

_Oh they tell me of an unclouded day_

He lifted the needle, putting it back to rest, and turned the machine off.

**A foolish, naïve song,** Deadpool said. It wasn't one that he recognised, but it sounded silly and idealistic. There was nothing so perfect about cloudless skies, and storm clouds were _always_ brewing on the horizon, even if you couldn't see them.

_I wonder where all _my _friends have gone,_ thought Wade. Were his friends amongst the bodies he'd uncovered on the island? Or had they already been long gone? Suddenly, it occurred to him that the collapse of a very large chimney probably hadn't gone unnoticed by people in general; perhaps he could find out more about it in the news.

He spotted a paper rack beside the TV, and rifled through the magazines until he found himself a newspaper. He picked it up and looked at the headline. _'Four death-row inmates still at large. Police appeal for witnesses.' _It wasn't what he was looking for, but it sounded like an interesting read, so he continued.

'_Earlier today, the FBI issued a statement confirming that four of the six death-row inmates who escaped from Mecklenberg Correctional Centre last week are still on the run. Two of the inmates are Linwood and James Briley, who were sentenced to death for a spree of theft, rape and murder in Virginia, in which residents were terrorised for seven months (March–October 1979). All of the escaped convicts are considered highly dangerous, and are suspected of being in the Carolina or Pennsylvania regions. Any member of the public who believes they have spotted any of these criminals should contact their local police station immediately.'_

There were mug-shots below the text, showing the faces of four men in jumpsuits.

**Maybe there's a reward for providing information on the escaped convicts,** Deadpool suggested. **And maybe a **_**bigger**_** reward for bringing them in. **Deadpool did not fear murderers; he was _far_ more dangerous than any common criminal.

Wade's eyes skimmed the date at the top of the page, and then looked again, just to be sure he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing. _June 2nd, 1984_.

**1984?!** How the hell had that happened? The last memory he had was of 1980; he _definitely_ remembered seeing the turn of the new decade. But the fragments of memories that were coming back to him were nowhere near enough to fill a space of four years. Somehow, he'd lost a lot of time, whilst being experimented on by the US government—time that he would never get back. All he could do now was charge a price for the lost years of his life, and he'd be collecting his fees in blood.

o - o - o - o - o

Connie finished her sandwich and looked around the diner. She'd purposely chosen to come to a place she didn't usually eat in because she didn't want to be recognised. Recognition might bring uncomfortable questions about why she had four stitches in her head; questions she wasn't yet ready to answer because the truth sounded too strange to believe.

She war harbouring a murderer. That much was clear. But he _had_ saved her life, and judging by his appearance, and his request for help, he was a much a victim in this as anyone. She suspected, now, that he'd escaped from the people who'd done this to him, and quite recently too, because he was probably still wearing the clothes, minimal as they were, that he'd escaped in.

After calling the waitress over to her table she settled her bill and left the diner, hauling the four bags of clothes she'd bought from a charity shop. She had no idea what size Wade was, so she'd gone for a range of different things. Whatever didn't fit him could be returned to the shop, and whatever did fit he could keep. Already she was forming a plan about how she could help him, but to find out what had been done to him she was going to need assistance. But first she had to get him cleaned up a little. She couldn't take him to the hospital looking as he did now. He would raise too many alarms.

At the door to the apartment block she fumbled in her pocket for her keys and managed to open the door without dropping anything. Normally she took the stairs to her room, because it was only three floors and taking the stairs was good exercise, but today she had too much stuff, so she jumped into the elevator and hit the button for the third floor. The ancient thing creaked and groaned its way up, and she got out at her stop. Another juggle of the keys, and her apartment door was open.

Stepping inside, she looked around the room. It was empty. Nothing within it seemed out of place, but the silence was disconcerting.

"Wade?" she called, depositing her bags on the floor by the sofa.

He stepped out of the bathroom, looking tense. She supposed her noisy arrival had startled him into hiding, which was surprising, and a little sweet, to think that someone who could kill five armed men without breaking a sweat would be startled by her. The tension didn't entirely disappear from his body when he saw she was alone, but he seemed less wary.

"Come and sit down, Wade," she said, patting the sofa.

It took a little coaxing—he didn't seem to want to sit, though whether it was because he couldn't relax or because he wanted to be ready for anything she did not know—but eventually she got him to perch on the edge of the sofa, and she sat down on the other side.

"I've been thinking about how to help you," she said. His eyes blinked once, and that was the only response she got. "I need to take you to the hospital where I work, so that I can use some of the machines to take a look at what's going on inside you. Is that okay?" A nod. "Also, I'm going to need to get a surgeon to take a look at you, and your test results, to decide on the best way forward." She noted the alarm in his eyes, and quickly continued. "Don't worry, it will be a friend. Someone I trust completely, and you can trust too. I know you want my help, but there's only so much I can do. I'm just a nurse. But I'm asking you to trust me. Can you do that?"

He picked up the pen and and pad from the coffee table, and scribbled something down in his untidy scrawl. _I don't like doctors._

"I'm not surprised," she said. "But I promise, it will be alright. Nobody I work with would hurt another person like that. But if you want my help, this is the way it has to be."

_OK._

"Good," she smiled. "Now, I've brought you some clothes, but before we get you cleaned up, I want to do a few preliminary checks. It will save time at the hospital. I know you probably won't want to spend any more time in there than necessary. Just wait here for a moment."

She went to her bedroom and pulled out a slightly more advanced medical kit from the bottom of her wardrobe. She probably wasn't supposed to have it, but it was the technician kit left over from when she'd done emergency ambulance training a year or two ago. Inside it were a few vital things—sterile surgical blade, epinephrine autoinjectors, trach tubes, etc—and a few non-vital things, including the heart-rate and blood-pressure monitor she was looking for. She took the larger kit back out to the living room, and set it down on the floor.

"First things first," she said, picking up a small pair of sharp scissors, "let's get those bandages off you. Hold out your right arm."

He did as commanded, and she held his arm in place as she began to cut through the bandage up the inside of his arm. He remained perfectly still, and seemed to be a much calmer patient than most of the other people she treated, many of whom were drunk, high or just plain rude. Though she could feel the tension in the muscles of his arm, he didn't even so much as flinch as the cold metal of the scissors cut close to his flesh.

The bandage fell off once she'd cut through it, revealing clean, undamaged skin beneath. She checked his lower arm for any puncture wounds or cuts which might have required it to be bandaged in the first place, but could see nothing. Content that he wasn't injured in any way, she transferred her attention to his hand, looking for an open wound where the long blade had slid out from between his second and third fingers. There was absolutely nothing there at all, and when she ran her thumb gently across his knuckles, she could feel nothing but smooth skin.

He suddenly pulled his hand away, making her jump in surprise.

_That tickles,_ he wrote on the pad.

"Oh, sorry," she said, fighting back an amused smile. The patients in the ER had never accused her of having a ticklish touch before. "I'll try to be a little less gentle," she said. "I just didn't want to hurt you."

_You aren't capable of hurting me._

Ahh, the brave soldier act. She'd seen it so many times. Normally it was used by teenage boys, who didn't want to appear soft in front of their friends and family. But perhaps there was more to it than that, now. Wade was, after all, a mutant. Connie wondered what it was like, to be a mutant, to live in fear, mistrusted by others. If she was a mutant, she wouldn't go anywhere _near_ other people, for fear of what they might do or say. But Wade didn't appear to be afraid at all.

"I'm going to check your blood pressure and heart-rate, then I'll take off the other bandage," she said, sliding the inflatable cuff up his arm. She fastened it tightly around his bicep, which was just as tense and hard as his lower arm. "Try to relax," she commanded, and began pumping the cuff up. When it would go up no more she took a reading from the gauge, committing it to memory, then took out a stop-watch. She used her fingers to find the pulse in his wrist—not the most reliable of pulse-spots, but the one she suspected he'd feel most comfortable with her checking—and began to count.

"Well," she said at last, "your blood pressure is one-ten over seventy, and your basal heart-rate is fifty-five. If you're not familiar with medical-speak, that means you're perfect. Now, let's get that other bandage off."

He obligingly switched arms to allow her to remove the second bandage, and she found his left arm just as normal as his right one. The skin underneath the bandages was much cleaner than the rest of him, and she realised the coating of dust he'd gathered made his skin tone look less than human. Once he'd showered, he'd probably look a lot healthier.

"I'm just going to check your pupil response," she said, and picked up a small flash-light. She aimed the small beam into one of his eyes, and saw the pupil contract to a small black dot, leaving a larger band of hazel around it. Without warning, Wade jumped to his feet, hands closing into fists, and Connie leant back, her heart thumping in her chest at the suddenness of his movement.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Did the light hurt your eyes? I didn't think you'd be photosensitive."

_No,_ he wrote. _It made me remember something. Not a nice thing. Please don't do it again._

"I won't" she assured him. "Please, sit back down. I'm almost finished."

He obeyed her request, perching once more on the edge of the chair. Automatically in nurse mode, she picked up the aural thermometer and placed it just inside his ear whilst waiting for the read-out. And as she waited, she took the opportunity to study his face a little more closely. The black patches around his eyes, she could see, looked like charred skin, and there was extensive scarring across where his mouth should have been.

"Ninety-eight point five," she said, after she'd withdrawn the thermometer. "That's good. An average human body temperature." She put the thermometer back in its case. "Now, hold still for a moment, so I can have a look at the damage done to your eyes."

He held his head as still as a statue as she used her fingertips to gently probe the dark layer of skin around his eyes. It was like a burn, and yet… not. She knew of nothing that could char skin so darkly, and yet leave it undamaged.

"Does this hurt?" she asked, pressing carefully around his eye-sockets. He shook his head slightly. "Do you know how this happened?" Another head shake. Connie brought her fingers around to behind his jaw, feeling for any swelling or trauma that might have resulted in damage and scar-tissue over his mouth, but everything felt normal. She could feel the pulse in his neck, none of his glands felt swollen, and she could clearly feel the tension in his jaw muscles. "Clench your teeth for me," she instructed, "as if you were biting down hard."

When he did, she felt the hinge of his jaw move. It boded well, that his jaw movement hadn't been impeded by the scar tissue. The skin that had been grafted over his mouth looked shiny, as all new skin did, but did not appear as fragile as it should have done. Whatever had been done to him, it wasn't recent. Again, she used her fingertips to gently probe around his lower face, and clearly felt his lips beneath the newer skin.

"How do you eat?" she asked. It was a question she had been wanting to ask since she'd first seen him, but thought that it might have seemed… insensitive before now.

_I don't._

"But… how do you survive, without food?"

_You tell me._

"Well," she said, trying to think about it logically, "how did the people who did this to you keep you alive?"

_I don't know. Don't remember most of it. They mostly kept me sedated. I woke up briefly from time to time. There were lots of tubes._

She nodded to herself. "That makes sense. We keep coma patients alive via tube-feeding. Not that I'm condoning what they did to you, of course," she said hurriedly. "But… how long has it been since you escaped?"

He began counting on his fingers, tallying off numbers, and that action made her smile. He counted like a child might count, before it learnt to keep tally in its head.

_Eight days._

"You've gone eight days without food or water?!" No human should be able to survive that long without water. Or, if he did survive, he'd be so close to death that it would make little difference. Certainly, no man who'd suffered that much deprivation would be capable of fending off five attackers and registering medically perfect vital signs. "Are you hungry?"

_Starving._

Suddenly, she was glad she'd chosen to eat at the diner, and not at home. She wasn't sure she'd feel comfortable eating in front of somebody who wanted to, but couldn't. It wouldn't have been fair.

"Well," she said at last, "I think that's enough examination for today."

_My old doctor used to do that thing, where they get you to cough._

"Yes, well, I'm not a doctor," she reminded him. It was good to see that he had a sense of humour, though. She'd often thought that the best way to get through difficult times was to find a way to laugh through them. "Now, I wasn't sure of your size, so I bought shirts and trousers from the charity shop in a variety of sizes," she said, gesturing to the bags she'd brought in with her, "and brand new socks and underwear. You can go and have a shower, and try everything on, see what fits."

She ushered him into the bathroom with the bags, showed him where the towels and soaps were kept, and instructed him on fiddling with the shower temperature to get it just right. Closing the door behind herself to give him privacy, she surveyed her living room. It looked as if a doctors convention had just left, with medical equipment and soiled bandages strewn everywhere. For some fifteen minutes she spent time tidying up, packing away her medical kits until they'd be needed again. The sound of the shower stopped, and she surmised Wade was probably picking through the clothes for something in his size. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was after midday, so she picked up her phone receiver and dialled the telephone number for the reception at West Hope Hospital.

"_Good afternoon, West Hope, how may I direct your call?"_ the receptionist on the end of the line asked.

"Please put me through to Doctor Simon Caldwell in the surgical department."

"_Please hold one moment."_

There was some quiet music played as Connie was put on hold and the line transferred. When the call was picked up, she recognised the voice immediately.

"This is Doctor Caldwell. How can I help you?"

"Simon, it's Connie," she said, smiling as she pictured him sitting in his small office, the _Chief of Surgery_ name-stand proudly placed in the middle of his desk.

"Connie? Well, isn't this a surprise! A pleasant one, I might add. What are you doing calling my office on your first day off in weeks?"

She leant against the wall, trying to work out the best way to handle this. Simon wasn't one of the doctors who'd expressed anti-mutant sentiments, but she had no idea how he truly felt about them. Perhaps it would be best if, for the moment, she didn't mention that little fact. He'd learn it for himself soon enough, anyway.

"Well, I was hoping you might be able to do me a favour," she said. "You see, I have a friend who's in need of a bit of medical help, but his situation is… complicated."

"Ah. He doesn't have insurance."

"No, it's not that," she said, though she had no idea whether Wade had insurance or not. "It's, well…"

"Come on, Connie, spit it out already."

"He has some very rare medical… conditions. I think he'll probably need surgery, but it's beyond anything I could do myself. Plus, I suspect we'll need to run X-rays, CATs and MRIs before making any decisions."

"So where does the favour come into it?"

"Well, my friend, he's sort of… well, he doesn't look like a normal person. He's got some quite extensive scarring on his face that I think would frighten most patients in the hospital. As well, I think being in a crowd would agitate him, and that's the last thing I want to do." God only knew what would happen if people saw Wade, started screaming, and frightened him. He might do _anything_ to get out of somewhere like that. "I was hoping to bring him for a check-up tonight, as late as possible, and I could really use an experienced surgeon to take a look at him."

"Alright, Connie, you've piqued my interest with your friend's case," Simon said. She could hear the smile in this voice. He loved a challenge; that's why he was chief of surgery. "I officially get off shift at ten o'clock, but if you can bring your friend for eleven, I'll stick around and take a look."

"Thanks, Simon. Oh, and one more thing. I'll be bringing him through the service entrance at the back."

"Because he doesn't like crowds, or so that you don't have to officially check him in?" Simon was a good guesser, and quite astute, for a surgeon.

"A little of both." She heard the bathroom door click as it was opened. "I have to go now, but I'll see you later tonight. Thanks again, Simon. I really appreciate this. I owe you."

"I haven't done anything yet. But we'll see. Catch you later tonight, Connie."

The line went dead and Connie hung up, then turned to look at Wade. She was pleased to see she'd been right; now that he was cleaned up, he looked a lot more human. Soap and hot water hadn't done anything for the patches of darkened skin around his eyes, or the scar tissue across the lower half of his face, but the rest of his skin was back to a normal pinkish white colour. The fact that he was wearing more clothes helped, too. He'd found some blue jeans which fit just fine, a plain black tee which seemed to fit snugly across his broad chest, and over it wore what looked to be a comfortable blue and grey plaid shirt, which he'd rolled up the sleeves of. He stood patiently in front of the bathroom door, as if waiting for comment or assessment.

"I'm glad to see you found something that fit," she said. "We'll sort through the rest later, and anything that doesn't fit I'll take back to the shop."

He glanced at the phone on the wall with a tilt of his head.

"Oh, that was Doctor Caldwell, chief of surgery at the hospital where I work. He's the friend I was telling you about. He's agreed to have a look at you tonight, and see what we can do to help you."

Suddenly, his head swivelled towards the apartment door, just before somebody knocked loudly on it. Connie felt her heart thump in her chest. She wasn't expecting visitors today, and all of her friends knew that she worked shifts; they always called before coming over, in case she was catching up on sleep, or away at work. Maybe it was simply the landlord, come to do a routine check on the electrics.

"_Miss Harrison?"_ someone called through the door. Definitely not the landlord. _"This is the police. If you're in, please open up."_

The thumping in her chest increased to a pounding, and she took a deep breath, trying to flood her body with much-needed oxygen; she was feeling a little faint. What on earth could the police want with her? Unless… those men in the alley, who had attacked her. Had there been a witness to that? Had someone seen Wade bring her back here? Were they coming to arrest him? Judging by the fierce look in his eyes, they wouldn't succeed. But the last thing she wanted was another blood bath. The police were just doing their job. They didn't deserve to be hurt for it. So she quickly intercepted Wade before he could reach the door, and planted a firm hand on his chest.

"Wade, go and hide in the bathroom," she said. "I can get rid of them."

"_Miss Harrison? We know you're in there. One of your neighbours saw you return an hour ago."_

"Please, Wade," she said, imploring him to let her handle the situation. At last he relented, and disappeared into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar. Connie quickly ran her hands through her hair, then hurried to the front door. She opened it up to find a man and a woman standing there, both wearing dark blue cop uniforms.

"Good morning, Miss Harrison," the man said. "I'm Officer Clark, and this is my partner, Officer Donnelly. We'd like to ask you a few questions, if that's alright with you."

"Um, about what?" she said, attempting to feign ignorance. But one thought passed through her mind. _Oh god, I'm going to have to lie to the police._ _I could go to jail for that._

"You were in the back alleys three blocks away from here last night, weren't you?"

"Err, yes," she said. "I sometimes cut through on my way home from work. It's a short-cut."

Donnelly spoke up, her blue eyes probing Connie's face for something resembling the truth. "And did you notice anything out of the ordinary last night?"

"Not really. Just the usual. Cats fighting, a couple of stray dogs rooting through garbage cans. Why?"

"This morning, the bodies of five men were found by sanitation workers in an alley you probably would have walked down to get home. They were found in what can only be described as a 'butchered' state. Do you know anything about that?"

"No, officer," she said. "God, that's dreadful. Who could do that to five men? Do you think it's maybe gang related?"

"That's just one avenue we're investigating."

"Miss Harrison," said Clark, "we spoke this morning to a vagrant who gave his name as Mr Grimes, and when we questioned him about the killings he said he'd seen you in the area, and that he'd also seen 'shadowy figures' nearby. Are you _certain_ you didn't see anything that could help us with our investigation?"

"Mr Grimes has been seeing 'shadowy figures' for years, Officer Clark," she said, with a small smile. "He thinks that he's being watched by government officials, that they're waiting to swoop down and take him in. I wouldn't put too much stock in his stories."

"He was a little paranoid, yes, but we can't afford to ignore any clue in this investigation. By the way, do you recognise this?"

From the inside of his jacket he pulled out a small clear bag that had the word EVIDENCE printed across it. And inside that bag was a small canister that she recognised instantly. The pepper-spray she'd used on the first attacker. The pounding in her chest ceased, and it felt as if her heart stopped completely. She couldn't lie. They'd probably just dust it for prints, to prove it was hers.

"Ah, yes, that's mine," she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop them. "I was halfway home and thought I'd forgotten to pick up my pay slip, so I opened my bag to check for it and the spray rolled out. It was so dark in the alley that I couldn't find it again after."

"So, the alley was light enough for you to see inside your bag to check for your pay slip, but not light enough for you to find a can of pepper-spray?"

"I didn't want to tarry," she said. He knew she was lying. She could tell that the cops didn't believe her. But what else could she do?

"I see. And if I may ask, Miss Harrison, how did you get that cut on your head?"

Oh god, she'd completely forgotten about that! A thousand lies rolled into her mind, and she dismissed all of them entirely.

"Oh, this?" she said, as nonchalantly as possible. "When I got home last night, my light was out. It was dark, but I thought I could make it to my kitchen, where I keep the spare bulbs. But I tripped and banged my head on the corner of the coffee table."

"And you didn't think of going to the hospital for treatment?"

_Oh god_. They'd already been to the hospital, to check in case she was working. Grimes must have sent them there. So they knew she hadn't been seen by anybody all night.

"I spend all of my working hours at the hospital," she said, thinking fast once more. "The last thing I want to do is spend my first day off there, too. It was just a small cut, and I was able to stitch it myself."

"I see."

"Miss Harrison," said Donnelly, picking up where her partner left off, "would you mind if we came inside and had a look around?"

"Err, what for?"

"Just to make sure you're safe."

"Umm. Do you have to?"

"No, but we'd like to." Donnelly gave her a reassuring smile. "We're here to protect you, Miss Harrison. You can let us in now, or we can come back in a couple of hours with a warrant. It's up to you."

"Well, okay," she said, submitting to the pressure.

She didn't want to be faced with a warrant, so she opened the door and allowed both officers inside. It made her apartment a little more cramped, and they looked around the main room thoroughly before Donnelly headed off to the bedroom and Clark to the bathroom. The pounding in Connie's chest started once more, and she felt a tiny trickle of sweat roll down her forehead as she surreptitiously watched Clark from the corner of her eye. He was reaching for the door handle, pushing the door open, stepping into the room to look around. She closed her eyes, and prepared for cries of alarm and pain.

"Can you explain this, Miss Harrison?" Clark asked.

Connie stepped into the bathroom. It was empty. At least, empty of Wade. Clark was standing in front of the recently-used shower, pointing at the piles of charity-shop clothes that had been left on the floor.

"Oh, yes," she said. "My father passed away a few years ago, and my mother didn't have the heart to get rid of his clothes. But she's finally decided she needed a clear-out, so she sent some of his things to me, to see if I wanted to keep any to remember him by."

"I see," he replied. It seemed to be his favourite phrase.

Donnelly returned from the bedroom and gave a small shake of her head. Connie dared to let out a tiny breath of relief. She had no idea where Wade had gone, but she was glad he'd found somewhere to hide.

"Well, thank you for letting us look around, Miss Harrison," said Donnelly. "If you can think of anything that might help us, please don't hesitate to call the station."

"I will. Thank you," she said quickly. She showed the officers to the door, let them out, and then closed and bolted the door behind them. She took only a moment to recover her breath, then hurried back to the bathroom. "Wade?" she hissed, paranoid that the officers might still be listening at the door. She opened the linen closet, but found it empty, and was just about to check the laundry basket when a tapping sound on the small window scared her almost half to death. She lifted the blinds and found Wade hanging upside down in front of the window. Just _seeing_ him there made her feel dizzy.

When he pointed to the window latch, she lifted it and opened the window fully. He swung his body around and down, slipping in through the hole which she would have thought too small for him to climb through. Clearly, the police had thought it too small for someone to climb through, too.

"You scared me half to death," she accused, and fastened the window once more. He merely returned to the living room, picked up his pad and paper, and scribbled something down for her to read.

_You're a terrible liar._

"What was I supposed to say?!" she demanded.

_That you were attacked in the alley. That someone interrupted and attacked your asailants. That you banged your head, ran in fear, and saw nothing else. When you lie, the closer you can come to speaking the truth, the more believable your lies will be._

"I'll try to remember that the next time I have to commit a felony by obstructing justice. And by the way, assailants is spelt with two s's."

_Noted._

"How did you even get out that window in the first place?"

_Climbed, very quietly. The police don't believe your story._

"Would you have believed it?"

_They'll probably have you watched. It's not safe for me here. I need to go._

He made for the door, but she dashed in front of him again. "Wait. Where will you go?"

_Somewhere else._

"Is there anybody else out there who will offer you help?" He shrugged, and she continued. "Then stay here. Let me help you. At least, stay until tonight. Dr Caldwell has promised to take a look at you, and you won't find a better surgeon in ten counties. Maybe the police _are_ watching me now, but you've given them the slip once, and I'm sure that between us, we can do it again."

_Why?_ he wrote, his hazel eyes flickering to hers before travelling back down to the paper. _Why are you so determined to help me?_

"Because I don't like to see people suffering and in pain. Because I think what was done to you is a terrible crime, and I think you've been through more than enough. Nobody deserves this sort of punishment."

He seemed to consider her statement before writing again.

_Alright. I'll see what your surgeon says. After that, no promises._

"Okay," she agreed. "But I have to ask you something, first. Why did you kill the men who were attacking me? Why didn't you just chase them away?"

He sat down on one of the sofas and started scribbling. A couple of minutes later, he handed her the pad, where a paragraph had been written in his spidery handwriting.

_I was a soldier, once. When those men attacked, it was an automatic reaction. I didn't think, I just acted. Maybe they didn't deserve it. Maybe they were drunk, or high, I don't know. But I make no apologies for what I did. If I hadn't killed them, they would have killed you, and they would have tried to kill me. This was the only way it could have ended._

"Oh," she said. She hadn't expected such cold, logical reasoning. She hadn't expected the complete lack of regret. Perhaps this was another side effect of the experimentation that had been done on him. "Will you tell me who did this to you? Maybe we can expose them, bring them to justice."

He shook his head. _It's too dangerous for you to know._

"Don't you trust me?"

_It's not you I don't trust. The people who did this to me would think nothing of killing you, if you knew what they had done. And they wouldn't send incompetent thugs to do it, like those men in the alley. You would just disappear. It would look official. Not even your own family would question it._

She shivered. Now he sounded like Grimes, seeing government conspiracies everywhere. What was it about soldiers, that made them think like this? Were they all so darkly paranoid?

_Is it really 1984?_ he asked on the pad.

"Yes. Why, what year did you think it was?"

_It was 1980 when they took me. I had no idea how long they experimented on me for. I was tortured for four years. All that time, just… gone._

"I can't even begin to imagine what that must have been like for you." She reached out, to place what she hoped was a comforting hand on his arm. "But that's over, now. Dr Caldwell and I are going to help you get back to how you were, then you can start living your life again."

He nodded, but the look in his eyes told her he wasn't convinced. She suspected his request for help had been made in desperation, and that he didn't truly believe she'd be able to do anything for him. But she would prove him wrong, and soon he'd see that not every doctor in the world was a Dr Frankenstein or Mengele.

* * *

_Author's Note: Thanks for reading the story so far. There will now be a break whilst I am busy doing festive-related things, and the tale will resume on the first Friday in January 2014. In the interim, why not check out some of my other stories, or go hunting for alternative Deadpool tales if you want to get your fix of everyone's favourite Merc with a Mouth. Until then, Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, God Jul (etc) and all the best for the gregorian New Year._


	4. A Visit To The Doctor

Lazarus

* * *

_Against my better judgement, I agreed to stay a little longer with Connie. I suspect I was one of those men who struggled to turn down a request from a pretty woman. Maybe one day, I'll remember a little more about who I used to be, before the government turned me into this mockery of a man. For now, my memories can wait. Connie's taking me to a doctor friend of hers. I hope he turns out to be trustworthy, because I think she'll be upset if I have to kill him._

* * *

_4. A Visit to the Doctor_

Night descended over New York City, wrapping it in a velvet black cloak. There were stars, but most people couldn't see them, because the ambient light of the city drowned them from view.

At ten forty-five, Connie pulled on a jacket and glanced out of her apartment window. The taxi was due at any moment, and she didn't want to keep it waiting. She glanced at Wade, who was pacing back and forth beside the small dining table. He was nervous. She just hoped he'd be able to keep calm enough to let Simon examine him.

"Here," she said, dipping into her bag and bringing out a blue baseball cap. "You might look a little less conspicuous in a hat."

He gave the cap a look of disgust, but accepted it and pulled it onto his bare head. She had to admit, he looked… well, even weirder. Like a monster trying to fit in with society. She couldn't even manage a smile.

"You should go," she said. "Remember to stay out of sight." The look he gave her said 'I know, I'm not stupid'. "I'll meet you at the laundry room window in fifteen minutes. Good luck."

He lifted the latch on the window and stepped out onto the fire exit. She heard him begin to climb, and then he was gone. Pulling the window down after him, she left it slightly ajar, so that he could get back in when they'd finished at the hospital.

There was a honk from outside, and she glanced out of her window again to see the taxi pull up. She hurried from her apartment and jogged down the stairs. This had been Wade's idea. He thought it was too dangerous for them to leave the apartment together through the front door, as he was certain the police were watching, and it wasn't as if they could take a taxi, with him looking the way he did. He was certain he could reach the hospital unnoticed by moving across the rooftops, whilst Connie, in a taxi, would be the focus of any tailing police cars.

It was a clear night, the air pleasantly cool. Connie hopped into the taxi without glancing around at the nearby cars, to see if they were occupied. She didn't want to appear nervous of being followed. As Wade had put it, we can't let them know we know they're on to us. It was all very convoluted, and she was glad she didn't have to deal with paranoids on a regular basis.

"West Hope Hospital, please," she said to the driver, an Indian man wearing a turban, and he pulled away from the kerb.

Though it took twenty minutes for her to walk to and from the hospital, by car the journey took considerably less. Five minutes after getting into the taxi, she was paying the driver and getting out of it at the front entrance to the hospital. Connie took a few step towards the building, but didn't enter. Simon was expecting her at the back door, so she followed the outside of the building until she reached the service entrance at the back. Here was where the delivery vehicles came, to drop off new medical supplies and collect hazardous waste and soiled scrubs for cleaning.

There were no deliveries this late at night, so the alley was quiet. As she walked towards the back door, she glanced around. A banging noise made her jump, but it turned out to be a raccoon knocking over a trash can. She found herself peering into some of the darker shadows, wondering what they hid. Was Wade already here, or was he still making his way over from the apartment? She'd given him a small head start, so she didn't think he'd be too much longer. It had taken her five minutes to walk around the perimeter of the building.

The back door was unlocked, and as she slipped inside she saw Simon waiting in the corridor for her. He gave her a smile, which lit up his blue eyes. With his floppy brown hair that hadn't started to grey yet, he was considered one of the best-looking doctors by most of the nurses, and he'd always been kind to Connie, showing her around the place on her first day, stepping in to help out when she'd had to deal with particularly violent patients. He hadn't been chief of surgery back then, but power hadn't changed his disposition at all.

"I was beginning to think you weren't coming," he said. "It's nearly—what the hell happened to you?"

The smile disappeared from his face, turning into a frown as he saw the cut on her forehead. He strode forward and took her chin in one strong hand, turning her head to examine the stitches.

"It's nothing," she said, managing to free her head from his grip. "I just had a bit of an… altercation… on my way home last night."

"An altercation? Wait, Does this have anything to do with those cops who were asking about you earlier?"

"Probably," she said weakly.

"They said they wanted you to assist them with a murder investigation. Are you going to tell me what's going on, Connie? You're not in any sort of trouble, are you?" He looked around, noticing for the first time that she was alone. "And where's this friend of yours?"

"He's going to meet us in the laundry room," she said, setting off through the disinfectant-smelling corridors.

"What? Why?" Simon demanded as he followed her.

"It's a long story. Let's just say that he likes windows."

"And this murder thing the police were asking about?"

"I didn't kill those men, if that's what you're enquiring."

"It's not." He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "I just want to help you, and I can't do that if I don't know the truth."

"I'll tell you everything. Soon," she promised. "But first we need to let my friend into the hospital before he does something stupid."

Simon asked no more questions as they walked side by side towards the laundry room. It always smelt nice, in here, like fresh bed linen. The laundry room staff handled everything that wasn't considered hazardous waste—bed sheets that were unsoiled, receptionist and porter uniforms, etc—but they didn't run a night shift, so although the washers and driers were all running, there was nobody around to interfere.

Connie went to the first window and opened it up wide. A few second later a dark shape approached and swung itself into the room, landing quietly despite the heavy army boots.

"My god, what is that thing?" she heard Simon say. He looked pale, and shocked. Clearly he hadn't been expecting this. Wade's eyes watched him with obvious mistrust.

"This is the man who saved my life," she told the worried surgeon. "His name's Wade," she said, resting one of her hands on the mutant's arm to show Simon he wasn't as dangerous as he looked. Well… he was, but she didn't want Simon to know that. "He needs our help."

"I'll say," Simon replied. He took a few steps closer, eyes running over Wade's face. Connie smiled. He'd gone into doctor-mode, now. "Whoever went to work on his face clearly wasn't a surgeon. More like a butcher, judging from the poor state of the stitching. And what's that around his eyes? Chemical burn?"

"Maybe we could continue this in an examination room," she suggested. Wade's arm felt tense beneath her hand, and the loud clattering of the driers was grating on her nerves.

"Yes, yes, of course," he agreed.

"And then I think we should get him X-rayed. There's something you'll want to see."

o - o - o - o - o

An hour later, Connie was standing beside Simon in front of the X-Ray screen, Wade's slides hanging from the top of the light-box. Wade himself was perched on the edge of an examination bed, wrapped in one of the pale blue medical gowns.

"What the hell…" Simon said softly.

Connie knew how he felt. Wade's X-Rays defied explanation. It wasn't just the long blade-like appendages which were attached to the bones of his arms—she had already seen those for herself—it was also the bones themselves. They stood out from the X-Ray background in perfect sharpness, and were solid white. Bones should not have been that colour. It was as if somebody had X-Rayed metal, and put it in place of Wade's X-Ray as a joke.

"I checked his vitals earlier," she told Simon quietly. "They're perfect. Something's keeping him alive, despite the fact that he hasn't had anything to eat or drink in over a week. I've seen those blades in his arms – they're completely retractable, but he doesn't even bleed when he draws them out. I have no idea how he controls the process, but he does. Simon, he said someone did this to him."

"Who?"

"I don't know. He says it's too dangerous for me to know. That the people who experimented on him would…. Make me disappear… if I knew who they were and what they'd done."

"And he's asked for your help?" She nodded. "What does he expect you to do?"

"I don't know. He said he wants to go back to how he was, before they changed him into what he is now. I think he's going to need major surgery, though."

Simon sighed, and glanced again at the X-Rays. "To be honest, I'm not sure even surgery can help him. This metal, whatever it is, it's grafted seamlessly onto his bones. Not pinned in place, not overlapping plates, but as smooth as bone itself. He shouldn't even be alive. With a layer of metal around his bones, there's no way for blood vessels to connect, to transport nutrients and white blood cells. He should be dead, or dying in agony. I have no idea how this was done. Maybe if he could tell us, we could reverse the process."

"I don't think he knows. He says he doesn't remember much. That he's spent four years being experimented on, but that it felt like a much shorter time because they kept him sedated."

"How do you communicate?"

"He writes things down."

Simon turned to survey Wade. Connie held her breath. Simon was the best surgeon in New York, and if he said he couldn't help Wade, then there wasn't much hope for the man who'd saved her life. But despite the low chance of success, she still wanted him to try. She didn't want him to give up on fixing Wade before he'd even made the attempt.

He walked over to a cupboard and took out a clipboard, a few sheets of paper and a pen, which he handed to Wade.

"I need to know as much as you can tell me about the procedures which were done to you," he said. "Connie tells me that your memory is somewhat patchy, but the more you can tell us, the better our chances of helping you."

Wade took the clipboard and pen, and began writing. The tap tap tap of the pen on paper was the only sound in the room for several minutes, interspersed with the occasional scratch scratch as he crossed out words he'd spelt wrong or wanted to change. When he handed the board back to Simon, Connie peered over the surgeon's shoulder and read the block of text.

_They messed with my DNA. Gave me the powers of other mutants by splicing their DNA into mine, or something. They put me in a machine which I think irradiated me, lots of times. I remember something they called 'physical stress tests' which hurt a lot – they kept me sedated but not fully unconscious for those. They sewed my mouth shut so I could not speak or object to what they did to me, and kept me alive by tubes and machines. They put a computer, a cybernetic implant, onto my brain-stem to try to erase my memory and control my actions. They cut open my arms and attached blades which could extend and retract, becoming hidden weapons. The metal on my bones is called adamantium. They submersed me in water and drilled into my body, pumping molten adamantium into the outer layers of my bones, which was a special kind of agony._

"Sweet Jesus," Simon said, his face aghast. "Why would anyone treat another living being in such a way?"

_Why do scientists experiment on monkeys and rats in labs? For progress._

"But monkeys and rats are animals. Human experimentation is an entirely different thing altogether. What were they hoping to achieve?"

_They wanted to make the perfect weapon._

"And did they succeed?"

Wade looked thoughtful for a moment before answering.

_That probably depends on your definition of 'perfect.'_

Simon nodded. "I'd like to take a closer look at the blades in your arms. If we can figure out how to remove them without damaging you, it would make a promising start."

"It's alright, Wade," Connie encouraged when she noticed his reticence. "If there's a way to help you, Dr Caldwell will find it."

Wade lifted one of his arms, and both Connie and Simon stepped back. A long silvery blade slid out from between his second and third knuckles, reaching a length that was as long as his lower arm. It ended in a wickedly sharp tip, but Connie could tell that it wasn't intended for stabbing, but for slashing and slicing.

"Does that hurt?" Simon asked. He stepped forward and took hold of Wade's wrist, turning it around to view from different angles.

Wade shrugged.

"I think that means 'not much'," Connie translated.

"Hmm. Gloves please, Connie."

She fetched a pair of latex gloves for Simon, and watched as he put them on and used his fingers to probe the area around where the blade exited Wade's hand.

"Interesting," he said. "Can you flex your wrist whilst the blade is extended?" Wade shook his head. "I'm going to see if one of our scalpels will scratch the surface of this metal, Wade. If it does, we may be able to operate and remove the blades from your arms. Connie, pass me a scalpel, please."

She did as requested, and Simon held the small blade expertly as he scratched across the surface of the metal. "Does it hurt?" he asked Wade, and received another head shake in response. "Hmm. Maybe a little more pressure, then." He pressed harder several times, then examined the long blade. "Not a scratch." He held up the scalpel, and touched the cutting edge with his finger. "Blunted. Whatever this metal is, it's hard enough to blunt surgical steel."

"Does that mean you can't operate?"

"I don't know." Simon frowned. "We use an electric saw to cut through bones, such as the rib cage. We could try that. I have to assume that the brackets holding the blades in place are coated in the same metal, so we might have to saw them off. But before we even think about opening up, we need to make sure the saw will get the job done. I'll go and fetch one from the operating theatre, and we'll test it now, whilst all's quiet.

"Thank you, Simon," she said with a smile.

"Don't thank me yet," he replied, and left the room.

She turned to Wade, who looked smaller in the hospital gown. "You're being very brave," she told him. "I know how much you don't want to be here."

He scribbled something on the clipboard.

_Do I get a lollypop?_

"We'll see," she smiled. It was so strange, how one moment he could be an unrelenting killer, and the next a childish joker. He was definitely something of a contradiction.

When Simon returned with the surgical saw, he plugged it in and tested the speed of the blade. It sprang to life with a loud whirr, and Connie was glad this was a distant part of the hospital, and rarely used unless it was at full capacity.

"Ready?" Simon asked, and Wade nodded. "It might be best if you rested the blade against the table, for stability. Connie, this may produce sparks, so you'll want to stand back."

"Of course," she said, and took a few steps back. Inside, she felt the nervous tension in her stomach. Although Simon clearly knew what he was doing, he was a surgeon, not a construction worker. The scene was almost comical; Wade standing with one of the long arm-blades resting against the examination table, and Simon standing with an electric saw wearing safety goggles. It might even have made her laugh, had she not known what Wade had endured to be turned into this 'perfect weapon.'

"Beginning procedure," Simon said, as he lowered the saw. Sparks began to fly, and there was a sound of something metal crunching violently. Connie winced at the sound – it sounded painful. But after just a few seconds, Simon switched the saw off, and held it up for Connie to see. The circular blade had been mangled, and there was not a single scratch on the metal of Wade's blade.

"That doesn't look promising," she said, feeling her hopes drop.

"It isn't promising at all." He took off his goggles, tossing them down onto the bed, placing the ruined saw beside them. "I have a friend who works in manufacturing, who has a diamond-tipped saw. I could give him a call, see if that works… but I get the feeling we'd end up with another ruined saw requiring a very expensive replacement."

"I'm sorry, Wade," said Connie, when she noticed the disappointment fleetingly in his eyes.

"I'm not ready to quit just yet," said Simon. "If the answer doesn't lie in physical force, perhaps it lies in chemical or biological processes. They got the metal in there somehow, so there has to be a way of getting it out. For now, though, it's obvious that it's not something we can fix. Wade, I'd like to get a sample of your blood for analysis. Perhaps there'll be a clue there about how to proceed. In the mean time, I've had a quick look at the scar tissue on your face, and I think it may be worth operating on it, to re-open your mouth."

"Really? How soon?" Connie asked, because she knew Wade would want to know.

"Ordinarily we'd be looking at a wait of several weeks whilst we run tests, but given the fact that Wade hasn't had food or water in over a week I think it better that we schedule the surgery sooner, rather than later. I can book a room in the OR for tomorrow late evening. I'll need to find an anaesthesiologist and two theatre nurses, but I'm sure I can convince a couple to stay behind for a little overtime."

Wade scribbled furiously on his clipboard, and then turned it around.

_No. No anusthesylologist. No theatre nurses. Too dangerous. For me, for them, for you. Shouldn't even be here in the first place. If you can't operate alone, I'm going._

"Simon, I could help you," Connie said quickly. The last thing she wanted was for Wade to disappear without getting the help he so desperately needed.

"You aren't a theatre nurse, Connie."

"No, but I've been in theatre before, and you know I have more than enough experience. Please, at least _try_."

He sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. For the first time, she noticed how tired he looked. When she glanced at the clock, she saw that it was nearly one o'clock in the morning. He'd been here for over twelve hours, now.

"There will be risks. I'm not trained to administer anaesthetics," he said, taking in both Wade and Connie with one look. "Too little, and you might not be under long enough for me to continue the op. Too much, and you might never wake up."

_It's a chance I'll take._

"Alright. Ten o'clock tomorrow evening. Connie, I'll get you some surgical scrubs, and I'll be relying on you to do the job of two nurses and an anaesthetist."

She nodded, confident she could do it. "I won't let you down."

"We'll need to take a sample of your blood, Wade, so that I can check for anything which might interfere with the anaesthetic. If we do it tonight, I can have it analysed ready for tomorrow evening."

_Fine_, wrote Wade on his clipboard.

"Lie back on the table for a moment. Connie, fetch me a blood testing kit and a blood pressure monitor."

She moved on autopilot. Having been a nurse for years, she'd taken enough blood samples to know how this worked. Once she'd retrieved the monitor, she slipped the cuff up Wade's arm and began to pump it up. Simon washed his hands in the skin, then cleaned the crook of Wade's arm with a sterile wipe. Wade didn't even blink as Connie inserted the needle into his vein, and thirty seconds later she was withdrawing it and sticking a band-aid over the tiny puncture in his arm.

"I'll take the sample and do a work-up tomorrow," said Simon. "It's getting late." He ran his hand across his tired eyes, as if trying to refresh them. "We should be going. I have three surgeries scheduled for tomorrow, not including Wade's."

"Alright," Connie agreed. "Let's get you back to the laundry room window, Wade."

"How are you getting home?" Simon asked her.

"I'll call a taxi, I shouldn't have long to wait at this time."

"Nonsense. I'll drive you home. Your apartment's on my route anyway."

"Are you sure? I don't want to be an inconvenience."

"Not at all," he assured her. "Besides, it sounds as if you've already had more than enough excitement for one week."

Together they walked Wade back to the laundry room, and opened the window for him. He slipped out as quietly as he'd entered, effortlessly pulling himself up onto the ledge and balancing for a moment before disappearing into a patch of shadows. He reminded Connie a little of the cats which lived in the alleys, and moved about them with silent efficiency – when they weren't scrapping with each other, of course.

She and Simon left by the back door, and walked around the outside of the building to the car park, so that Connie wouldn't be seen and forced to stop and answer awkward questions posed by her colleagues who knew that the police were questioning her over several murders. Simon's car was a well-kept red Chevvy, and he held the passenger door open for her whilst she climbed in.

The engine roared to life when he turned the key in the ignition, then settled into a rumbling purr as the engine began to warm up. They spent the journey in silence; Connie could tell Simon had a lot on this mind, but then, she had given him a lot to think about. She knew just how he felt.

They pulled up in front of her apartment block, and sat in silence for a moment.

"Well, thanks for lift," she said, unbuckling her belt when it became obvious he wasn't going to speak first. "I'll see you tomorrow night for the surgery."

"Connie, you'll be careful, won't you?" His blue eyes were full of concern. "This isn't some injured puppy you've found and taken in. It's a dangerous mutant, who's been effectively tortured for years, and who knows what sort of mental damage that's done to him?"

"I know," she said, trying to reassure him as best she could. "But I don't think he'll hurt me, Simon. He's had plenty of opportunity. I think he knows that there aren't many people in the world who would help someone like him."

"You feel indebted to him for saving your life, but remember, he murdered five men to do it. For all we know, the only thing keeping you alive is the fact that you're useful."

Connie said nothing. She knew Simon was only being protective, but she just didn't agree with his assessment of Wade. Simon looked at him and, despite knowing better, saw more of a monster than a man. Connie had seen a different side to him; she'd seen his emerging sense of humour and worry in his eyes, and she knew that despite his appearance, he was a man, no different to other men despite the fact that he was a mutant; and had killed five people in the heat of the moment.

"I'll be careful," she promised. "Thanks for tonight, Simon. We'll see you tomorrow."

She left the car and unlocked the front door of the apartment. The Chevvy roared away once she was safely inside, and she made her way to the stairwell, feeling in a climbing mood. By the time she reached the third floor she was barely winded, and wasted no time in making her way to her apartment door. The shadows seemed a little more threatening, since her attack the night before.

Once inside her apartment, she finally relaxed. She flipped on one of the lamps and glanced around the room. The window, which she'd left slightly ajar, was now closed.

"Wade?" she called, hanging up her jacket behind the door. He stepped out from the bathroom, took off the baseball cap, and tossed it onto the coffee table. "You move fast," she said. She hadn't expected him to be back so soon; he'd got here even before the car. "How are you feeling?"

He picked up the pad and paper and wrote for a moment.

_Hungry. Tired. Pissed. Cautiously hopeful. _

"Are you worried about the surgery tomorrow?" she asked.

He shrugged, then elaborated.

_I just want it to be over with. I want to be me again. Want to get my memories back so I can figure out who I'm supposed to be._

"Maybe they'll restore themselves, in time," she suggested.

_Maybe. But you look exhausted. You should get some rest. Don't want a tired nurse helping operate on me._

"I guess you're right. I hadn't realised how tired I was, until now. I think I'm running on adrenaline. What about you? You said you're tired; do you sleep?"

_Not recently, but I did spend four years intermittently sedated._

"Well, I'll get you a blanket, just in case you feel like lying down on the sofa and resting your eyes."

She left him and went to her bedroom, and opened the linen closet. Several blankets were piled up, so she picked the one which smelt the least like mothballs and made sure it didn't have too embarrassing a motif on for a grown man to use. Luckily it was a simple green and white patch pattern, one that her grandmother had made for her when she was leaving home for college to begin her nursing studies. Grandma said students were always wanting for warm blankets.

When she returned to the living room, she found Wade perched once more on the edge of the sofa, staring out of the window.

"You look uncomfortable," she pointed out.

_Sofa's too soft. I think four years of being strapped to stainless steel operation tables has ruined soft things for me._

"Ah. Then you probably won't like the blanket," she said, handing it over.

_It's fine. Thanks. I might not sleep, anyway. I appreciate all you've done. Not many people are sympathetic towards mutants… even normal-looking ones._

"Well, I don't like to judge a book by its cover. You learn more from the story inside."

_Then I'm glad I can't remember most of my story. I doubt you'd like it much._

"That's the difference between people and books," she told him. "Books end, and once they're finished, the story can't be changed. People's stories aren't set like that. If you don't like something that happened in the past, you can change it so that it doesn't happen again in the future. As long as you're alive, your story's unfinished."

_Sounds philosophical. Maybe you're in the wrong job._

"I don't think so. I like helping people too much to be anything other than a nurse. Anyway, I should go sleep, and let you get some rest. It's been an eventful day for both of us, and we have another big day ahead tomorrow."

Back in her bedroom she closed the door and changed out of her clothes, into a pair of pyjamas. Then she collapsed onto her bed, too tired to wash or brush her teeth or even get up to close the curtains. She didn't even have time to roll into her preferred comfortable sleeping position before she closed her eyes and unconsciousness took her.

* * *

_Wade's Note: Thank you, guest reviewer, for the reminder about updating. The author completely lost track of days. My poor readers almost missed out on a new chapter about me. The horror!_


	5. Do I Not Bleed?

Lazarus

* * *

_I decided that Dr Caldwell could be trusted… until he does something to break that trust. For the moment, he seems to want to help, though I don't think he's doing it for me. He seems sweet on Connie, which I guess I should be thankful for, because if it wasn't for her he'd probably have called the cops by now. All my life I pitied those mutants who looked too different, who couldn't pass as normal… and now I'm one of them. It's yet one more thing to hate the Weapon X program for. One more reason for revenge. I know that even if the surgery is successful, and even if I can get all of this adamantium out of my body, I will never be the same again. The more time passes, the more I'm becoming convinced that I can never be Wade Wilson again… if that's even who I was to begin with._

* * *

_5. Do I Not Bleed?_

Wade was standing beside the apartment window, looking out over the streets below. He'd been there for several hours, and now Connie was growing worried. She couldn't see anything that might hold his attention for so long, and she wondered if he was scared about the upcoming surgery.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

_Checking in case the apartment's being watched._

"And is it?"

_I think so. There's been a car parked outside all day, two people in it. They look like normal people, which probably means they were specially picked for the stake-out._

"What should we do?"

_Nothing. Continue with the plan. Get in your taxi. I can travel the rooftops and back alleys without being seen. Nobody thinks to look up when they're hunting._

"Should you be standing by the window?" she asked, unsure of how safe it was.

_Don't worry, they can't see me._

"How do you know?"

_If they knew I was here, they would have stormed the building already._

"And if they do suspect you're up here, and they storm the building?"

An angry fire in his eyes reflected the orange lamp light.

_I will never be restrained or imprisoned against my will again._

She didn't have to ask what he meant. If the police tried to apprehend him, he would fight to the death. No matter how many people he had to kill, he wouldn't allow himself to be taken into custody. And though she couldn't condone the threat of violence that lingered in the air, she could at least understand it. Wade had been experimented upon and tortured for years, and when he'd broken out, he'd killed five men. It was likely any court of law would not treat him with equality, not just because he was a mutant, but because he looked so terrifying. The situation wasn't fair.

"We should probably get going," she said, and he nodded.

Whilst Connie grabbed her jacket, Wade left by the window, disappearing silently into the foggy night. A couple of moments later she left her apartment and walked down the stairs. As she passed her neighbours' doors she heard little sounds of life from within their rooms; old Mrs Caitlyn in 309 was listening to her TV, the volume loud because she was half deaf; Mr and Mrs Saunders in room 304 were arguing again, her voice high and trill, his low and beleaguered; room 301 belonged to Mr Parvinder, who owned the local convenience store – he always left his radio on when he was out, so people would think he was home.

On the ground floor, Mr Westbury from the second floor was standing beside the mail boxes set into the wall. When he saw Connie, he quickly stuffed a letter from his box into the inside pocket of his oversized coat, and hunched his shoulders as if trying to blend into the shadows clinging to the walls.

"Good evening, Mr Westbury," she said. He was another paranoid, and he had a thing about germs which meant he never came to collect his mail in the morning with most of the other apartment inhabitants, and he kept most of his skin covered at all times. Right now he was wearing green rubber gloves on his hands, and the collar of his coat was turned up, the white stubble of his beard just visible beyond it.

"Good evening," he grunted, and hurried off towards the stairs. He never took the elevator – said the buttons were colonised by the germs of everybody who'd ever pushed them.

The front door of the apartment block locked automatically behind Connie, and she stood for a moment with her arms folded across her chest. Her taxi wasn't here yet; must be running late. She heard the sound of an engine starting up, and glanced around, but it took her a moment to locate the grey sedan that was parked further down the street with its lights off. Squinting against the fog that was slowly filling the street, she thought she could just about make out two figures sitting within the vehicle. Perhaps Wade was right.

Headlights lit up the fog, and she saw the yellow cab roll down the street. It was the same driver tonight as it had been the night before, and he greeted her with a nod as she climbed into the vehicle.

"West Hope Hospital?" he asked.

"Please."

She looked behind, through the rear window, as the taxi pulled away, and saw the grey sedan's lights come on as it pulled away from the kerb. But that was just a coincidence, right? It didn't mean it was following her, just that the driver had chosen that exact moment to set off.

Try as she might, she couldn't dismiss the grey sedan from her mind. Several times she glanced behind and saw it following at a discreet distance. It was, she decided, time to put Wade's theory to the test.

She leant forward to speak to the driver. "Do you mind if we make a stop at the liquor store around the corner?"

"No problem."

The taxi took a sharp left, and Connie watched as the sedan did likewise. And as the taxi pulled up in front of the small shop, the grey car halted a couple of dozen feet behind.

Connie's heart was thumping as she left the taxi and walked into the liquor store. She _was_ being followed! But what could she do about it? If she called Simon at the hospital, he'd probably come straight over here, but then there would be nobody to let Wade in and he might panic about that. Or worse, he might follow Simon here and decide to put a stop to whoever was following her in the car. And if she told either of them that she was being followed, they might say it was too dangerous to go ahead with the surgery. She had to keep this to herself. Both Simon and Wade would worry unnecessarily if they knew about this. Once she was inside the hospital, she would be safe.

For a moment she browsed the shelves, and then picked up a bottle of red wine at random. There wasn't anything in particular she wanted to buy—the diversion had only been a way of determining whether she truly was being followed—but now that she was here, she had to buy something. A bottle of wine might be a nice thing to celebrate with, if the surgery went well.

Back in the taxi, she instructed the driver to continue on to the hospital, and just a few minutes later she was paying the man and making her way to the back of the building. The grey sedan had pulled up in the parking lot, where she suspected it would stay until she left.

She found Simon waiting for her at the back door, dressed in his surgical scrubs.

"You're running late," he said.

"Sorry, I had to stop for an errand. Is Wade here yet?"

"No. I left the laundry room window open, but he hasn't appeared." He glanced at her brown paper bag. "What's in the bag?"

"Just a little something to celebrate with."

"Need I remind you about counting your chickens before they've hatched?"

"You're not convinced the surgery will be successful?" she asked, surprised. Compared to some of the other surgeries he performed, it should be a relatively simple thing.

"It's not the surgery I'm concerned about, but Wade's recovery. It's going to be a delicate and long-term process. He needs a lot of help, Connie. Specialist psychological help. I'd like to refer him to a psychologist, to try and help him re-integrate into society and come to terms with everything that's been done to him."

"What if he doesn't want counselling?"

"If we can prove he's a danger to society, I could have him committed."

"I think that's a colossally bad idea," she said. Images of doctors trying to restrain an enraged mutant who could wield blades directly from his body flickered through her mind. It would end in a bloodbath. "Tell you what, let me talk to him over the next few days. I'll try to convince him that seeing a psychologist would help him with his recovery."

"Alright. I'll leave it in your capable hands."

They went to the laundry room, and Connie stood on a detergent box, to lift herself up to the window ledge height. She peered out of the window, into the foggy night.

"Wade!" she called quietly. A figure detached itself from the shadow of a dumpster and materialised into Wade, who lowered himself down in through the window. She suspected he'd been there all along, but didn't trust Simon enough to enter without Connie there. Which was entirely ridiculous, because Wade was obviously capable of taking care of himself.

"Sorry I'm late," she said. "Are you ready?"

Looking much calmer than she felt, he nodded.

"I've brought equipment from the OR to the examination room we used last night," Simon explained. "I think it's too risky to take Wade up to the OR, even if any of the rooms are free."

"Will you be able to operate in the exam room?"

"It's not ideal, but as far as impromptu surgery theatres go, it will do."

He led them through the corridors to the now-familiar exam room, and Connie looked around at the differences that had been wrought since last night. The exam table was covered by a disposable surgical sheet, and other sheets were nearby on a table read for use. On another metal table were surgical instruments, padding and bandages, gauze, a stitching needle and a couple of hypodermic needles filled with some sort of fluid. A small part of the room, underneath the X-Ray light-box, had been screened off.

"Connie, I left surgical scrubs in the room next door for you. Go and get changed, and then we'll prep for surgery. Wade, there's a gown behind the screen, which you can change into," said Simon.

Connie stashed the bottle of wine out of the way then went into the next exam room to get changed. She pulled on the unfamiliar green scrubs, tied back her long red hair, and pulled the green hair-net cap over it. She didn't feel like herself, dressed in green, but that was probably for the best; she wasn't Connie the medical nurse today, but Connie the surgical assistant.

When she returned to the exam room, she found Wade loitering by the bed, and Simon preparing some of the equipment. He looked up when she heard her enter, and gave her a reassuring smile which told her she was showing some of her nerves.

"Relax, you'll be fine," he said. "Come and scrub up at the sink, and we'll get started. Wade, lie down on the bed. I know it's uncomfortable but you'll just have to tolerate it until we sedate you."

Connie gave Wade a nod of encouragement, and he started to climb onto the operating table as she joined Simon by the sink. He ran the water until it was hot, then gave her some of the sterile gel to wash her hands right up to her elbows. It wasn't an ideal situation; there should have been a second nurse to help them put their gloves on, so everything remained sterile, but there was nobody they could have brought in for this.

Once they'd scrubbed up for surgery, they stepped towards Wade. Simon covered him with a second surgical blanket, and altered the direction of an overhead lamp so it wasn't shining in the patient's eyes quite as much. Then he pulled his mask over his own mouth and nose, and Connie did likewise.

"There are two syringes of methohexital on the table, Connie," Simon explained. His voice had begun to drone calmly as he'd automatically slipped into surgeon-mode. "Wade, your case presents us with a unique issue. Ordinarily, we'd induce anaesthesia with an injection, and then maintain it for as long as necessary with via a combination of oxygen and anaesthetic gas. Because I'm going to be working on your face, I can't put a mask on you, which means we'll only have fifteen minutes with the first injection. As we approach the fifteen minute boundary, we'll inject you again for another fifteen, but I daren't keep you under any longer than that. Depending on how much we get done today, you may require another surgery in a couple of weeks.

"I will repeat again what I've told you before; this is going to be very risky. I normally wouldn't operate with less than two theatre nurses and an anaesthetist. Sedating you this way, and keeping you under without gas, could have unforeseen consequences. Are you certain you want to go ahead?"

Wade nodded, and Connie saw the determination in his eyes.

"Alright," Simon said, though he didn't sound happy about it. "Connie, please administer the first injection of methohexital."

The nerves in Connie's stomach quickly died away as she picked up the first syringe. Simon's calming tone had had an effect, and now that she was doing her job, fear about how the surgery might go, and what complications might arise, fled entirely. She found the vein in Wade's right arm easily, and he didn't even flinch as she slid the needle into his skin. She gave him the full dose, then withdrew the needle, placing it in a hazardous waste container.

"Now, Wade," said Simon, "I'd like you to count backwards from ten in your head."

Connie waited, mentally counting with him. When she reached one, she saw that his eyes were still open, and when she noticed him blinking she looked at Simon in confusion. Most people were unconscious by the time they reached five, and because Wade hadn't had anything to eat or drink recently, he should have quickly succumbed to the anaesthetic.

"Count backwards from ten again, Wade," Simon instructed.

There was another ten second wait.

"Are you still awake, Wade?" Connie asked. He nodded. "This isn't good."

"No, it isn't," Simon said. All that was visible of his face above his mask and below his cap looked very concerned. "Try the second injection, Connie."

She obeyed, picking a spot a little further up the vein from the first injection site. Again, Simon instructed Wade to count backwards from ten as Connie threw away what had been their back-up syringe. After another two counts of ten, Simon sighed, and pulled down his face mask.

"I don't know why the methohexital isn't working, but we'll have to postpone the surgery until I can find something more effective. I'm sorry, Wade. Connie, help me pack things up."

She reached forward, to take the clean blanket off Wade, but his hand came up and grabbed her wrist. His grip wasn't tight, but it was definitely firm, and it prevented her from taking the blanket away.

"Wade, we can't continue without anaesthetic," she said, pleading with him to understand. "The pain would be terrible for you, and you would move. In order to operate, Simon needs you to be completely still. It can't be done unless you're sedated."

The grip on her wrist merely became even firmer, and she looked up helplessly at Simon.

"Absolutely not," he said immediately, understanding what she was asking. "There's not a chance in hell I'm going to operate on a person who's awake and conscious. If you're not reacting to a general anaesthetic, you probably won't react to a local, either, and I'm not going to be the cause of that much pain for someone, not even a mutant."

With his free hand, Wade clicked his fingers, then made a motion as if he was writing with a pen. Simon brought him a clipboard, and he let go of Connie's wrist to write something down.

_If you don't do it, I will._

"Wade, no," she said. The very idea was horrifying to imagine. "You would do a lot of damage to yourself if you tried DIY surgery… and the chance of infection… you could bleed to death, or be very ill, maybe even die."

_Then do the surgery. Even if it hurts, I won't move. I'm not afraid of pain. Not anymore. But I won't live like this._

"Simon, maybe you should do it," she said. The thought of how much pain Wade would have to endure made her feel sick to her stomach, but the thought of him leaving and performing amateur surgery on himself probably in unhygienic conditions was even worse.

"You're asking me to break my Hippocratic oath, Connie," he said, shaking his head. "I could lose my licence over this."

_If it helps, I could threaten you with physical violence, _Wade wrote.

"That's not funny," said Connie.

_It wasn't a joke. I doubt they'd revoke your licence for operating under duress. Besides, who am I going to tell? I can't remember the names of anyone I might talk to about this, and in case you hadn't noticed, I'm rather short on friends at the moment._

"If I was to operate on you without anaesthetic, I would be no better than the butchers who did this to you in the first place."

_Yes, you would, because you have my permission. My insistence, in fact._ Connie could see Simon's resolve teetering, and Wade drove his point home._ Did surgeons in the trenches of World War One always have the luxury of ideal operating conditions and anaesthetics?_

"No, but a lot of patients died back then."

_I won't die. Do the surgery or I'll do it myself._

Simon sighed, and Connie mentally urged him on. The last thing she ever wanted to do was watch someone be operated on without sedation, but the alternative was even less preferable.

"I know I'm going to regret this… but OK. If it's the only way to stop you from further damaging yourself, then I'll operate. But I don't like it, and I do consider this duress."

Wade tossed the clipboard away and lay back down on the table. Now that the decision had been made, he seemed eager to get started.

Simon lifted his face mask back over his mouth and nose, and held out his hand. "Scalpel."

Connie looked down at the instruments on the table, and a lump caught in her throat. Suddenly, everything was real. She'd asked Simon to operate on someone without an anaesthetic, and now that he'd agreed, she'd have to be a part of it. He couldn't perform the surgery alone, and she'd have to stand here and watch and listen and participate, knowing that she was causing a man terrible pain.

"Connie," Simon said, his eyes now cold and hard. "Are you with me?"

"Yes," she said, because she didn't want to let either of the men down. Her hand shaking only very slightly, she picked up the scalpel and placed it into Simon's open palm.

"Ready with swabbing," he said, and she used a pair of tongues to pick up a wad of absorbent gauze-like material. "Making first incision."

She watched, heart thudding noisily, as he lowered the scalpel and cleanly began to cut across the scar-tissue on Wade's lower face. Blood immediately began to flow, but he didn't call for swabbing so she waited tense and ready. Glancing down, she saw Wade's hand gripping the outer edge of the table, his knuckles white, and reached out with her free hand to squeeze the back of his wrist. She wanted to let him know that he wasn't alone, to differentiate in his mind what he was going through now with what he had gone through over the past four years.

"Mop-up," said Simon, lifting the scalpel to allow her access to the bleeding tissue.

She held the swabbing in place for a moment, then pulled it away. To her surprise, she couldn't even see Simon's first incision. Simon, too, bent down to look a little closer. Then he put down the scalpel and gently probed the scar-tissue with his fingertips. No fresh blood flowed, no skin separated… it was as if there had never been a cut in the first place.

"I don't believe it," said Simon. "Hand me that swabbing, Connie."

She gave the tongues to him, and with his other hand he picked up the scalpel once more and made a second incision. As the blood began to pool he used the swabbing to soak it up, and when he pulled it away there was no cut there.

"I've never seen anything like this before in my life," he said.

"What can we do about it?"

"I don't know if there's anything we can do." Simon stood up straight and put both the tongues and the scalpel down. "Wade, it seems your body is healing itself as fast as I can operate. I suppose this explains why you don't bleed when you extend those blades in your arms, but it means it's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to make any sort of lasting cut in your skin. How did the men who did this to you manage to make the changes to your body last, if you're capable of healing so quickly?"

He fetched the clipboard back and handed it to Wade, who wrote something down.

_Don't know. I was mostly unconscious. It's not like they consulted me on the finer points of ruining my life._

"You said before that they gave you new abilities by splicing the DNA of other mutants into your own. Which abilities were yours before they started doing that?"

_Can't remember._

"You can't remember, or don't want to?"

_Do you think I want to be like this? A freak who can't even remember if his own name is real?_

"I think that the memories of what was done to you, and who you were before, are there inside your mind. But I think you're not ready to handle them yet. I think… I hope… that they'll come back in time, but I also believe you're not particularly eager to recall some of those darker memories."

_Which just goes to show you're almost as good a shrink as you are a surgeon._

Wade cast the blanket off and slid off the bed with an angry glare for Simon. He didn't bother to stick around, merely walked behind the screened off area and was changed back into the clothes Connie had bought for him in less than a minute. When he made a beeline for the door, Connie pulled down her surgical mask, dumped her bloody gloves, and hurried after him.

"Wade, wait!" she called, jogging down the corridor to catch up with his longer stride. "Don't leave, please."

He ignored her and marched on, and it was only when he reached the laundry room window that she managed to catch up with him and grab his arm. He turned and glared at her, but she knew it wasn't her he was angry with.

"Simon shouldn't have said what he did, but he wants to help you, just as I do."

The glare remained, but it was rather half-hearted.

"I know today has been a setback, but I'm not prepared to give up yet. Will you come back, and talk about this?"

Wade shook his head.

"Will you at least go back to my apartment and wait there for me, then?"

A pause. Then he nodded.

"I'll see you soon."

When Wade disappeared out the window, Connie returned to the exam room. Simon had packed up half of the equipment, and taken down the screen. His floppy brown hair was messy from wearing the surgical cap, and he sighed when he saw her return.

"You're alone?" he asked.

She nodded. "I think you hurt his feelings."

"All I did was point out how the situation looks from the outside."

"Can you blame him for not wanting to remember? If someone had tortured you, experimented on you, and tried to erase your memory, would _you_ want to recall even a moment of that?"

"Probably not. But I also wouldn't blackmail people into operating on me without anaesthetic."

"He's desperate."

"I know, and that's what bothers me. Desperate men are dangerous, Connie. I don't need to tell you that; you've seen it yourself. Remember that guy who came into the ER last year? The gunshot to the arm? Remember how he'd tried to rob that convenience store, and when the police were tipped off and arrived here, he held a pair of scissors to Nurse Walmsley's neck?" He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder; she knew it was supposed to be reassuring, but it felt more restrictive than anything. "Take my advice; let Wade go his own way. Let him do whatever he wants, as far away from New York City as possible."

"I can't turn my back on someone in need, Simon. Besides, his situation is entirely different. He didn't choose to be made into a living weapon by some shadowy organisation. I know there's more to him than that, and I want to help him rediscover who he was. That sort of journey isn't something that anyone should have to go through alone."

"Exactly. There are mental health professionals who would be more than capable of helping him."

"But be trusts me. I think after everything he's been through, it would be hard for him to trust any sort of doctor. You don't like him, do you?" she asked.

"I don't know him enough to make any sort of decision," said Simon, which Connie translated into 'no.' "What I do know is that he's dangerous, and possibly unstable. You say he trusts you, but such trust shouldn't be a burden."

"Simon," she said, placing her hand on the surgeon's arm, "he saved my life. And even if he hadn't, I'd still want to help him. But I can't do that alone. So I'm asking for your help; not for Wade, but for me. Because I won't be able to sleep at nights knowing that I could have done more if I had someone to rely on."

"Dammit, Connie." He pulled away from her, turned to observe the dripping tap on the other side of the room. "You know I wouldn't let you do this alone. Someone has to make sure you're safe. I'd never forgive myself if you were hurt." He turned back to her. "There is one more thing we could try. A friend I went to college with is the head of Medical Science at New York University. He's been working on a new laser machine, which he hopes to introduce within the next twelve months as a tool to help with minor surgery and skin-grafting. Maybe, just maybe, the tissue in Wade's body will be more susceptible to laser-cutting than a scalpel cut. I could ask my friend if we could trial his machine. I'm sure he'd be eager to test it on a human subject."

"I would really appreciate it if you'd ask your friend. And I know Wade would, too."

"It might take me a couple of days to get hold of David, and even if he agrees, it could be a couple more until he can get his machine ready. I'll call you when… if… this can go ahead."

"Thank you, Simon. For everything."

He gave her a wan smile. "You keep saying thanks, but I haven't actually done anything yet. Tell you what, why don't you go and get changed, and I'll give you a lift home?"

"Something else to thank you for."

She left him and returned to her pile of clothes in the next room, but didn't rush to change. She suspected Wade wouldn't want her to hurry home from the hospital; no doubt he had a lot on his mind.

* * *

_Wade's Note: The author once again apologises for the late update. We'll be having strong words about this._


	6. The Hunted

Lazarus

* * *

_The attempted surgery has been a failure. Seems I've been made _too_ perfect. I don't know what to do now. Connie says Doctor Caldwell is trying to make other arrangements, but I don't have much hope left. All I know is that I can't continue like this. One way or another, this misery has to end._

* * *

_6. The Hunted_

"_What's next?" asked Stryker as he walked around the metal table. Wade could hear the major… no, the colonel, now… could hear his voice, but they'd injected him with something which made his mind woozy and his vision blurry. The colonel sounded as if he was underwater, and the room was spinning gently, as if he'd just turned fast circles and thrown himself on the ground._

_One of the scientists answered; Dr Killbrew, Wade thought._

"_Whilst your team are busy acquiring us the necessary DNA, we thought we'd continue by testing Wilson's tolerance for pain. From what we've observed, he appears to have a very high pain threshold, but we'd like to determine exactly how high it is before we even consider imbuing him with Weapon X's healing factor."_

"_This won't damage him, will it?"_

"_Not permanently, no. Naturally, some degree of short-term damage is required for this sort of testing. We can't test his pain threshold without causing him pain. Nothing serious; we'll inject something painful but not lethal into his veins, to see how his organs respond. We have a few other things in mind, for after that."_

"_Very well. Let me know if you find anything interesting."_

.

Wade opened his eyes. The morning sun, streaming in through the living room window and warming him where he sat perched on the edge of the sofa, did nothing to banish the memory. Ever since the failed surgery, three days ago, the memories were coming back faster and stronger than ever, but they were nothing he wanted to recall. It was all torture, the term 'medical experiment' draped loosely over it to justify what they had done to him.

Though there were many faces in his memories, the most common—and the only ones he could reliably put names to—were those of Stryker, Cornelius and Killbrew. Those three men had stolen his freedom and ruined his life. They'd treated him as less than human; less than animal, even. The things they had done to him were probably banned in civilised countries, including America, but they'd done them anyway. Out of curiosity. Out of a desire to create a living weapon. Out of a desire to control. And, Wade decided, they would be the first to die. He would do to them everything that they had done to him, and then he would kill them, and the world would be a better place for it.

_But first…_

There was still the small matter of getting fixed. Even if his head was forever broken, his memories shattered into fragments like a broken glass, he still wanted his body the way it had been. He wanted to be able to walk down a street without inciting a fearful mob. He wanted to look in the mirror and see not a freak, but a man. He wanted to do the things other people could do, like laugh and talk and eat high-calorie junkfood. The life of purgatory he had now… he didn't deserve it. He was pretty sure about that. He knew he'd probably done some bad things, but he'd walked away from it, and there were people who had done much, _much_ worse. Stryker, for example.

He stood up, pulling Connie's blanket from his shoulders, and went to the bathroom. The mirror above the sink was a constant source of anger; it mocked him relentlessly, showing him the face of a stranger. A monster. A face not even a mother could love. The dark patches around his eyes had begun to fade a little, but it didn't make him look any more human. Three days ago, he'd come _so close_ to the first stage in his recovery; he'd been certain that the surgery to open his mouth would work. But in the end, even his own body had betrayed him. Stupid body. He hated being stuck in it.

**We're a proper freak now,** said Deadpool.

Without thinking, Wade balled up his fist and punched the face in the mirror. Glass shattered, cutting into his knuckles, showering the sink and the floor in small shards. His hand stung, but at least he didn't have to look at the face of the monster anymore.

Connie came running from her bedroom, dressed in her pyjamas, her hair all messy. She barely even blinked when she saw the broken glass covering the bathroom floor.

"It's okay, I didn't like that mirror much either," she said.

Which merely made him angry. He didn't _want_ understanding and pity, because it made him feel weak and powerless. He'd rather be feared than pitied, but it was too late for that now; Connie had stopped being afraid of him when she'd learnt of all that had been done to him. As much as he was grateful for her care and understanding, he hated seeing the compassion in her eyes. Her sympathy made him feel like a victim, and he didn't want to be a victim; victims were helpless people who had things done to them because they were too weak to resist. It was yet one more thing the Weapon X doctors had done to him; they'd turned him into a victim. One more thing to hate them for.

"Come and sit down, and I'll get that glass out of your hand," Connie instructed.

And, because there was nothing else he could do, he obeyed, taking a seat on the edge of the sofa whilst she, once again, fetched her first-aid kit. Using a pair of tweezers, it didn't take her long to extract the slivers of glass from the back of his hands, and as she removed each one, his skin healed up. Seeing him heal quickly no longer awed her. She worked with swift competence, her hands ticklish as she held his in place, turning it to give her better access to the glass shards.

"You'll be okay here on your own, won't you?" she asked, glancing up at him between extracting shards.

He nodded. It was her first day back at work after five days off, and she was concerned that he might not be able to cope with being alone, as if he was some child who couldn't be trusted, or who might get into trouble without his mother around to keep an eye on him. How easily she had fallen into the role of protective carer. Almost as if she was born to help tortured freaks.

"I'll be back at about eight o'clock… luckily I don't have a late shift for a few more days, yet. There's the TV for you to watch, and some newspapers you can read if you want to catch up on what's been happening over the past few weeks. Is there anything you want me to get for you? Books? Magazines? Some more clothes?"

He shook his head. There were only two things he wanted; to get fixed, and to get revenge. Connie was helping him with the first, but the latter would be entirely down to him.

After Connie had left for work, Wade resumed his current favourite pastime; pacing. He'd never been much of a pacer, before—at least, he didn't think he had—but now it was the only real form of exercise he could partake of. Not that he particularly wanted to go for a jog in the park, but he thought it best to keep active. Besides, the pacing was nice. It helped to clear his mind, gave him chance to think of all the various things he was going to do to Stryker and his team of butchers before killing them.

An hour later, the novelty of pacing had worn off. He'd paced in the living room, and then a bit in the bedroom, but the bathroom was too small to pace in, and the kitchen merely reminded him of things he couldn't have. It was time, he decided, to make some things official by writing them down. His memories were so jumbled up that maybe committing them to paper would help him clear them up a bit. Or maybe he could just make some giant jigsaw puzzle out of it and spend the rest of his life obsessing over putting it back together again. Only problem was, he didn't have the box, with the picture on it, to know how it should go.

He sat at the absurdly small kitchen table with a pen and a wad of paper that Connie had given him so that they could communicate. It left him feeling strangely lacking. After all, even gorillas could communicate via sign-language, and he was pretty damn sure he could do anything some monkey could.

.

_A flash of colour. The green of a verdant rainforest, illuminated only by the light of a campfire and by the stars overhead. When Wade looked up from the fire, he saw others sitting there with him. One of them was Stryker, but for some reason, Wade didn't feel threatened by this memory. The other men were diverse; Bradley was there—his was the one face that Wade could accurately put a name to. Another was the olive-skinned man, Zero, but that probably wasn't his real name. Also there was the man who had attacked him, the Captain, a cigar sticking out of his mouth. One of the other men had black skin and he wore a cowboy hat, of all things. The last was a huge mountain of a man who was making a game of tossing leaves into the fire._

_Suddenly there was sound and movement from out in the jungle, and he felt himself tense up, automatically reaching for the swords that lay by his side only because it was damn near impossible to sit down with them sheathed to your body._

_A man walked out of the forest; he, like the others, wore dark green fatigues, and as he stepped into the firelight he dumped something on the ground._

"_So, anyone for fried monkey chunks?"_

_._

Wade blinked and shook his head as the memory lingered. It had been one of the most powerful ones yet, the faces so clear, the sounds and the smells so… real. Most surprising had been his own feelings; tiredness, and contentedness. He'd never have guessed that he'd ever feel the latter in a memory involving Stryker.

But who were those men, the ones around the campfire, and what had they all been doing in a jungle? Was it something to do with the army? Maybe they'd been on a mission; perhaps it was top-secret. The fact that they'd all been dressed in military uniform, and armed to the teeth, suggested it wasn't just some lazy vacation.

He mentally filed the memory away. It was something he could explore later, once he'd written some of what he remembered down. Picking up the pen, he wrote 'I am…' at the top of the first sheet, then began listing things below.

_Wade Wilson (probably)_

_Deadpool_

_Weapon XI_

_A living weapon_

_A soldier_

_Amknee… Amneesy…. lost my memory_

He turned the paper over, and wrote 'people I know' at the top, underlining it.

_Stryker. The bastard who turned me into a living weapon._

_Dr Killbrew. The bastard who helped him._

_Dr Cornelius. The other bastard who helped him._

_Christopher Bradley. A (possible) friend. Mutant. Can 'manipulate electrical fields.' Former member of Team X. Probably dead._

_Captain. Has metal claws in his hands, like my swords. Attacked me, don't know why. Probably former member of Team X. Possibly dead._

After all, it would take someone with near-immortality to survive the collapse of that chimney. Someone like Wade.

_Agent Zero. The bastard who brought me to Stryker. Another probable former team member. Unhealthy obsession with guns. Possibly gay. Will deal with him after Stryker._

_Victor. The other bastard who brought me to Stryker. Likes to eat monkeys. Former Team X member._

_Some black dude in a cowboy hat. Former Team X member._

_A huge guy. Possibly Fred Dukes. Likes burgers. Ditto._

He put down the pen and looked at the list. This was it. The sum of his life amounted to a dozen or so lines of poorly-remembered facts, and some of them he wasn't even half sure of. Naturally, there were other faces in his memory, but they were fleeting, irrelevant; a scowling man in a cook's uniform here, a smiling black-clothed woman there, the worry-lined face of a man who may or may not have been his father, a woman with long golden hair which made him think of Rumpelstiltskin. Those faces were nothing but ephemeral flickers, barely even worth thinking about.

There was a sound from the apartment door, and he froze. It sounded like someone trying to turn a key in the lock, but Connie wasn't due home for hours yet, and she always made more noise than this. This sounded like someone _trying_ to be quiet, which rang all sorts of alarm bells in his head. When the door handle was rattled once or twice, he quickly folded up his pieces of paper, tucked them into his shirt pocket, and made for the fire exit window.

He slipped out of the window just as the door opened, and hung for a moment from the sill before quietly lowering himself to the fire stairs below. When he was certain he hadn't been heard, he stood up slowly, peering in through the open window. He felt no fear as he watched; no concern over being discovered, or for his own physical safety. Perhaps the man he had been would have felt fear—maybe Wade Wilson would have been more cautious—but Deadpool was barely capable of feeling anything. They had already tortured all of the feelings out of him; what more could they possibly do? They had broken his body and shattered his mind, and the only thing he even remotely feared was the possibility that he might not get his vengeance.

It wasn't fear for himself that drove him through the window, but fear for Connie. As much as he wanted to stay and gut whoever was sneaking into her apartment whilst she was away, he suspected she wouldn't appreciate coming home to dead bodies. She'd probably never get the blood out of her carpets. And whilst she was being watched by the police, he didn't want to draw any unnecessary attention to her. Only because she was still helping him get his life back, of course, not because he was overly concerned for her welfare. She was simply… useful. Besides, this could easily be the building's owner, or the site custodian, come to check up on the apartment. And as much as he desired to inflict pain, he considered it at least moderately important that that pain be targeted in the proper direction. Harming civilians—and he used that term because he wasn't sure there was any such thing as 'innocents' these days—would not help him at all.

The men in the apartment did not look like custodians. There were three of them, each dressed like Joe Average save for the white sterile gloves on their hands, and they were turning the place upside down. Not in a messy way; they checked every nook and cranny, but put everything back exactly the way it was, so that it seemed nothing had been touched at all. One of them looked in the small waste bin in the corner of the living room, and withdrew something red and white, dropping it into a clear plastic bag. Wade narrowed his eyes; that had been the tissue Connie had used to clean up his hand whilst the cuts had bled for all of a second after she'd extracted the glass shards.

One of the men turned to a small box he'd set down on the coffee table. In went the tissue, and out came something in the man's hand. Whatever that 'something' was, there was more than one of them, because the man handed something to each of his fellows, and one went off to the bedroom, the other the bathroom. The man in the living room look around for a moment, then set his sights on a lamp on the sideboard. He removed the shade, stuck something to the inside of it, then replaced it.

"Soundcheck, one two three four," the man said, and there were similar sentences uttered from the other rooms. The other two men returned to the living room, and began packing up their box. It was then that Wade was betrayed by fate. A pigeon, which had been perched on the rails above watching the odd-looking human as he surveilled the intruders, finally decided it was under threat, and it took to the air in a flap of noisy feathers. The sound caught the attention of the men in the room, and Wade ducked beneath the windowsill just as one of the men's eyes snapped up to the open window.

He knew what would happen. The man would walk over to the fire exit, spot Wade, and then Wade would be forced to kill him, and Connie would be pissed at him and possibly get in trouble with the police, and then Wade would be stuck with this stupid mouthless body forever. Desperately, he looked down, and saw the open dumpster which would afford him a relatively soft, if smelly, landing. But that looked _far_ too messy, and it was _far_ too cliché a way of escaping from one's pursuers. So, instead, he launched himself from the fire escape and grabbed the windowsill of an open window that was two rooms away and one floor down. His muscles complained briefly as he caught the sill and pulled himself up inside the window, and he prayed to whoever might be watching and not laughing their ass off at his life, that nobody was inside the room.

His prayers were answered, or luck was with him, for he found himself swinging into a bedroom not unlike Connie's, only this one had much weirder decor. The walls were liberally plastered with newspaper clippings, some dating back two decades or more, involving UFO sightings and government cover-ups. It was a room that would have done any conspiracy theorist proud. Clearly, this was how the guy got his jollies whilst lying in bed at night. For some people it was supermodel pin-ups. For the owner of this apartment, it was little green men.

Wade didn't wait too long in that private sanctum of paranoia. He gave himself a count to one hundred, then climbed up to the window and returned to the fire escape, courtesy of his cat-like agility. He wondered whether this was a skill that had been his even before the experiments; it was one of the only abilities that had not been lost since his waking. But then again, he was fairly certain that he hadn't been able to regenerate injuries in the blink of an eye, and he still had _that_ ability, too.

Connie's apartment was empty, devoid of the intruders. Just to be sure, Wade was _extra_ quiet as he climbed into the living room, and his head swivelled quickly from side to side as he scanned the area for incongruities. There were none. Still tense, he made his way to the lamp shade and carefully removed it from the lamp. Inside, he could see a small metal object, roughly the size of a quarter, affixed to the shade.

_I wonder what this is,_ Wade thought.

**It's a bug, **Deadpool replied.

_What? How do you know that?_

**The military put info in our head, duh.**

_Oh. I guess that makes sense. I wonder who those men were. Police?_

**No way. This stuff is hi-tech. Not standard police fare. They probably don't have anything this sophisticated. Check the phone line for a piece of string attached to a paper cup. If you find one, that's the police.**

_What should we do?_ Wade asked himself.

**Get the hell out of Dodge. That's what we should do.**

_But… what about the surgery? What about getting ourself back to how we were? You know, when we had a mouth, and we could talk, and eat stuff. I'm really hungry._

**Me too. But somehow, They've tracked us here. Or They know enough to have strong suspicions. It's too dangerous for us to stay now. We should cut and run before They come swooping in to capture us. Do you **_**want**_** to go back to the Weapon X program? Do you **_**want**_** to be subjected to more… experiments?**

_Well… no. But we've come so far, and we are __**so**__ close to getting fixed. And what about Connie? If we just leave, she'll be worried about us._

**Bah!** Deadpool scoffed. **Who cares what some broad thinks? It's not like she's doing us. She'll worry for all of a day, and then forget we ever existed. Just like everyone else. If you ask me, we should be tracking down our so-called friends and asking them some **_**very**_** pointed questions about what they've been doing recently, with regards to handing their pals over for government torture.**

_Yeah, well, I __**didn't**__ ask you,_ Wade pointed out. Deadpool could be so demanding at times. And the more time passed, the more vocal the second voice in his head was becoming. Not that he minded sharing his brain-space with the voice of a government-created mutant killer—he figured that Deadpool had just as much right to be here as Wade Wilson. After all, they both had to exist, and until he could figure out a way to reconcile who he was with who he had become, this seemed the best option. You weren't crazy if the voices in your head were _real,_ after all.

_We're not running,_ said Wade firmly. _We're going to stay here and get fixed. We don't know who our friends were, but we have a chance here to make some new friends. Like Connie._

Deadpool rolled his eyes. **Riiight. Well then, if that's what we're going to do, we might as well do it right. Grab a pen. We have a lot to write down.**

o - o - o - o - o

The apartment hallway was empty when Connie returned home, but that wasn't unusual. Because she worked shifts at the hospital, she sometimes went days without seeing any of her neighbours. She didn't keep the most social hours, but it was the only job she'd wanted to do, ever since she was a little girl. When she was seven, her grandfather had taken ill, and she'd spent weeks with her mother by his bedside, watching the nurses change his dressings and take his blood samples, and caring for him when all all-powerful doctors had given up hope. Her grandfather had died, but Connie had been so enthralled by everything the nurses had done for him, that she'd decided right then to dedicate her life to the same cause. Granted, she hadn't ended up in palliative nursing as she'd originally intended, but she still got to help people. She still got to save lives. Knowing that what she did made a real difference had helped her to get through some of the darker times in her life.

She jogged up the stairs to the third floor, and took her apartment keys from her bag. On the way home she'd stopped to grab a bite to eat from the local diner, knowing that she wouldn't feel comfortable eating anything with Wade present. She did feel guilty that she hadn't given Mr Grimes any pilfered fruit cups lately, but she hadn't been able to face the back alleys since the night of her attack.

As she jiggled the key inside the lock, she smiled to herself. Wade would be so pleased when he heard the news she had to tell him. Stepping into the room, she let the door close behind her and opened her mouth to call for Wade. With no warning, a hand was clamped over her mouth, and an arm wrapped around her body, holding her arms to her sides so that she couldn't struggle. She tried to scream but it came out as a muffled squeal, and the first thought was that somebody had broken into her apartment. A flash-back of the alley came unbidden to her mind, the smell of rotting garbage, the roughness of a man's hand as he groped at her chest.

The apartment was in near-darkness, only the lamp-light to see by. The arm around her body loosened a little, allowing her to breath more easily, and she took a deep breath, flooding her lungs with air even as her heart hammered inside her chest. But despite her fear and her futile flailing, there was no reciprocal violence. She wasn't flung to the floor or pushed roughly against a wall, she was merely held firmly in place by an arm that did not budge by even an inch.

When she realised Wade must be the one holding her still and silent, she ceased trying to struggle, and allowed herself to relax a little. He _must_ have a damn good reason for doing this. He'd never made any effort to touch her before, never tried to threaten or hurt her. She knew that, had he been able to speak, he would probably be doing so right now. But he couldn't speak. This might be his way of getting her attention… or ensuring her silence.

As she stopped struggling, the arm around her let her go completely, and the hand was removed from her mouth. She turned and found herself looking into Wade's hazel eyes, though in the darkness they seemed a deeper shade of brown, and he held a finger over her lips, indicating that she should be silent. She nodded in understanding, and he took a note from his pocket, handing it over for her to read.

_Don't speak yet. Some men came here earlier. They put listening devices in your apartment. They can hear everything you do and say. Act natural. Put on the lights, then go to the record player and put on an album. Then go into your bedroom and pack a bag. Hum to yourself as you do it, as if you haven't any care in the world, as if you don't know you're being listened to. _

It took every ounce of courage she had to obey Wade's instructions. Her legs felt wobbly, her mind light-headed; somebody was _spying_ on her? It seemed too unbelievable to be true. She knew Wade was paranoid, but she hadn't realised it had gone this far. Then again, she didn't think this was something he had made up. If he said somebody had been in here, then somebody had been in here. He was far more well-versed in these matters than she. And he _had_ been right about her being watched by the occupants of a car.

The record she chose was Petula Clark, and when Downtown started to play, she began to hum to herself. She didn't have the best voice in the world, and the hum had a definite monotone quality to it, but it was the best she could manage with her fraying nerves. In her bedroom she grabbed a backpack from under her bed and stuffed some clean clothes into it, along with her toothbrush and other toiletries. She had no idea what Wade had in mind, but she was willing to trust him on this. After all, he had saved her life.

When she returned to the living room, he handed her another note.

_Go to the phone. Call the police. Tell them you've seen a car loitering outside your apartment, and men inside with binoculars. Tell the police that the men have been watching you undress, and that you think they're perverts preying on vulnerable women._

Though she knew she couldn't talk, she mouthed 'why' at Wade, and he hastily scribbled something down.

_The people watching you aren't police. They won't want the police involved in any way. I need to get you out of here, but to make sure we're not followed, I need you to get the police interested so that the men in the car drive away for a while._

This sounded like a colossally bad idea. She'd already had one close encounter of the police kind, and now Wade was asking her to draw their attention to her again. But… she _did_ trust him. He seemed to know what he was doing, despite his paranoia. Perhaps once they were away from the apartment, he'd be able to give her more answers.

She switched off the record player and picked up the phone receiver, dialling 911. The operator picked up instantly.

"_911, how may I direct your call?"_

"Yes, my name is Connie Harrison," she said, "and I live in the Brook Building on Park Road, Brooklyn. For the past couple of nights there's been a car parked outside the apartment block, and I've seen men inside it. They've got binoculars… I think they're using them to look into the windows and watch myself and other women undressing. The car's there right now. I feel so violated."

"_Ma'am, please lock your doors and windows. We'll send a patrol car around immediately to check this out. It would help if you could provide us with the make and model of the car, as well as its registration number."_

The sound of screeching tyres could suddenly be heard from the street outside. Connie pulled the phone as far away from the wall as it would go, and saw a car disappear down the street.

"Oh, I can't see it from where I am," she lied. "I'm not on the ground floor."

"_Alright. Try not to worry. A patrol will be with you in just a few minutes."_

"Thank you," she said, not even needing to pretend to sound relieved. She merely hung up the receiver and turned to Wade. He didn't give her chance to mouth any questions at him; he took her hand and led her towards the window. Of course. She should have known that he wouldn't be happy leaving by the door. That would be too normal.

He went first, and held his hand out for her, to help her climb up through the window. She shouldered her bag, grabbed his hand, and he practically pulled her up with seemingly little effort. Not for the first time, she wondered how strong he truly was. So little was known about mutants. That was why most people feared them. But Connie wasn't afraid. Not anymore. If Wade wanted to hurt her, he'd had plenty of opportunity. All he wanted was for somebody to help him, and it wasn't as if there was some mutant charity he could go to for help. It was a miracle he was even able to bring himself to trust _her._

She climbed down the fire escape as quietly as possible, conscious that her neighbours might get suspicious if she made too much noise. Near the bottom of the metal stairs, she heard Wade lower the access ladder, and she followed him down. When her foot slipped on a wet rung, she let out a frightened squeal, but Wade placed a steadying hand on her waist, and she knew he wouldn't let her fall.

"Where are we going?" she asked, when her feet were finally on solid ground. He couldn't answer, of course, but when he turned away from the road to the main street, and instead made for the back alleys, she hung back. Just the thought of returning there, to the place where she had been attacked, was enough to start her heart racing. How could she explain to him how scared she was, how much the memory of what had happened shook her up? He wouldn't understand. He'd think she was weak and foolish.

When he noticed she'd stopped following, he turned and merely looked at her, waiting patiently.

"Can't we go by the main road?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"But with the car gone, it's safe. Isn't it?"

Another head shake. But he seemed to understand her reticence, and he lifted his arm, holding out his hand like a parent would for a child before crossing the street. She took a few steps forward. Suddenly, the enormity of her situation hit her. She was being investigated not only by the police, but also some shadowy organisation which was not opposed to abducting law-abiding citizens and performing inhumane, torturous experiments on them. If the people who'd done this to Wade had tracked him this far, how long would it take them to gather information about her? How long would it be before they showed up at her work, or her mother's home, hoping to find her at either of those places? What wouldn't they do, if they thought it could get them Wade back?

"I'm scared," she admitted, not caring that she sounded like a coward.

He merely looked at her, his eyes conveying urgency. With nothing else left to do, she stepped forward and took his hand, and let him lead her into the alley, where the shadows swallowed them.

* * *

_Wade's Note: Yay, a chapter that actually got uploaded on a Friday! On a related note, the author has now run out of pre-written chapters and will be writing... adhoc! Le gasp! My story's still going to be updated on Fridays, but because the author has to work a full time job and live a double-life as a soviet secret agent (that last bit might be a lie) during the week, it probably won't update **every** Friday. But that's okay, because in between chapters you can go read my comics or play my computer game, right?_

_Also, the author would like me to remind all readers that donations of money, booze, helper-monkeys and spare body parts (presumably for sale on some black market) would be most welcome, and would help to facilitate the move away from 9-5 work slave and soviet secret agent, to full time writer. Helper-monkeys which can serve booze whilst scavenging spare body parts and crapping out money would be particularly useful._

_The author may or may not be serious about this._


End file.
